GENEVA: Crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Myanmar military have “escalated at an alarming rate”, UN investigators warned on Tuesday, citing systematic torture, gang rape and abuses against children.

The United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said that in the last six months, more than three million people are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes, as conflict spirals within the country.

“We have collected substantial evidence showing horrific levels of brutality and inhumanity across Myanmar,” said IIMM chief Nicholas Koumjian.

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“Many crimes have been committed with an intent to punish and induce terror in the civilian population.” In its annual report, covering July 1 2023 to June 30 2024, the IIMM said the conflict in Myanmar had “escalated substantially” in that time, “with reports of more frequent and brutal crimes committed across the country”.

The investigators said they had collected significant evidence of more intensive and violent war crimes, including aerial attacks on schools, religious buildings and hospitals, with no apparent military target. They also cited physical mutilations against detainees, including beheadings and public displays of disfigured and sexually mutilated bodies.

The investigators are looking into unlawful imprisonment, including arbitrary detention and “manifestly unfair trials” of perceived opponents of the military junta. “Thousands of people have been arrested and many tortured or killed in detention,” the IIMM said.

Myanmar’s ruling junta came to power in the February 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, ending a 10-year experiment with democracy and plunging the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil.

The junta is struggling to crush resistance to its rule by long-established ethnic rebel groups and newer pro-democracy forces.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2024