The human rights situation in Myanmar has “plummeted to a new low”, the United Nations has said, citing the “ever-worsening brutal abuse” of the Rohingya minority and the devastating impact of illicit economies, including illegal mining for rare earths.
In a new report, published on Tuesday, the UN’s human rights office said the quest for control and legitimacy by Myanmar’s military – which seized power in a coup in 2021 – has only deepened the suffering of civilians in the country.
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The military has deployed tactics such as “airstrikes, arson attacks, displacement and denial of assistance” against civilians as it battles ethnic armed groups and militias for control of the vast resource-rich country, the report said.
An estimated 8,075 civilians, including 1,074 children, have been killed since the coup, with at least 1,241 of them occurring in the past year, it said.
The toll is likely higher, the report cautioned, noting that open sources indicate that as many as 15,731 civilians may have been killed since the coup and 3,102 in the last year.
The violence has also resulted in the number of internally displaced people rising to 3.6 million, it said. Some 12.4 million people were facing acute hunger, while 400,000 young children and mothers were suffering from acute malnutrition.
In western Rakhine State, the military and the Arakan Army – a powerful ethnic armed group they are fighting against – have continued to commit widespread and systematic violations and abuses against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, it said.
The continuing violence, which comes nine years after a brutal crackdown that forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee into Bangladesh, has caused renewed displacement, it said.
The report went on to accuse the Arakan Army of carrying out arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, forced labour and recruitment, and destruction of villages and religious sites.
When Rohingya try to escape forced recruitment, they are detained and “routinely subjected to ill-treatment”, with former detainees describing beatings, the removal of fingernails, and chilli being applied to genitals.
The UN human rights office said the absence of the rule of law in Myanmar has resulted in a booming illicit economy, with illegal rare earth mining in northern Kachin and northeastern Shan state strengthening the expansion of transnational criminal networks.
Satellite imagery confirmed Kachin state as the primary rare-earth mining area, with 302 new sites since 2021 – a 149 percent increase.
Mining runoff, meanwhile, has caused environmental contamination, which, in turn, has affected maternal and reproductive health, it said, citing sharp surges in miscarriages and other pregnancy complications tied to heavy metal and chemical exposure.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called the findings deeply troubling.
“This report depicts a picture of suffering, misery, and cruelty on multiple levels and across the country that is heartbreaking,” Turk said.
The high commissioner urged states, companies and investors to reconsider their involvement with the state.
“I call on all states, companies and investors to undertake serious soul-searching with respect to their actions – or inaction; to ask: is this fair and just for the people of Myanmar?”
