GENEVA: The United Nations has declared Myanmar’s humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly with scenes resembling the 2017 atrocities against Rohingya minorities.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk stated both Myanmar’s military and Arakan Army ethnic fighters have operated with near total impunity against civilians.
“Videos and pictures show death, destruction and desperation, distressingly similar to images that we already saw during the 2017 atrocities committed by the military against the Rohingya minority,“ he said in an official statement.
Turk expressed deep personal pain witnessing the recurrence of violence and reiterated his call for the UN Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.
A new UN report covering April 2024 to May 2025 documents how Rakhine State hostilities have displaced hundreds of thousands more people.
Approximately 150,000 refugees have fled to Bangladesh since November 2023, joining around one million Rohingya already in overcrowded camps there.
The report verified 1,811 civilian deaths during the 14-month period with nearly half caused by military aerial attacks on schools and protected objects.
Civilians from both Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine communities suffer widespread systematic patterns of indiscriminate attacks by military forces.
Forced displacement, forced recruitment, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, arson and property destruction remain rampant throughout the state.
The ongoing military blockade has severely restricted humanitarian supplies, deepening an already critical hunger crisis in the region.
Turk urged all nations to support international accountability efforts and enable urgent humanitarian assistance delivery. – AFP
