THE country’s military has consistently targeted civilians and their communities as a form of collective punishment in Myanmar’s southeast since the army seized power in early 2021, a rights group said in a report.
Documented airstrikes on villages examined by researchers from the Karen Human Rights Group based in Myanmar’s southeast are emblematic of a broader assault on civilians across the war-torn nation, said James Rodehaver, the Bangkok-based chief of the Myanmar team of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He spoke on Friday in an online panel discussion accompanying the release of the new report.
The army is on the defensive against ethnic militias in much of the country as well as hundreds of armed guerrilla groups collectively called the People’s Defense Forces, formed to fight to restore democracy.
Rights organisations and United Nations investigators have found evidence that security forces indiscriminately and disproportionately target civilians with bombs, mass executions of people detained during operations and large-scale burning of civilian houses.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tallies political arrests and attacks, at least 540 people, including 109 children, have been killed by the army’s airstrikes between January and October this year.
The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) identified 227 airstrikes on villages, schools and medical facilities in seven districts in the country’s southeast where guerrilla fighters from the main ethnic Karen fighting force have battled the military. A self-proclaimed Karen state there also includes towns in the nearby region of Bago, the southern Mon state and Tanintharyi region.
The KHRG said it based its findings on interviews with 22 villagers, including six village leaders, who had experienced or witnessed air attacks.
The group added that at least 417 civilian casualties with 168 deaths and 249 injuries were documented from a total of 227 airstrikes in civilian areas and only 22 non-civilians were reported as being killed or injured in airstrikes.
Besides the houses of the civilians, at least 67 religious buildings, 42 schools and 14 medical facilities were damaged or destroyed, the report said.
Myanmar’s ruling military council, the State Administration Council, conducts airstrikes in multiple and irregular ways, the report found. — AP
