One year on from Myanmar’s military coup, violence and brutality has only intensified, but “a window of opportunity” does exist, “to build upon a unique unity across religious, ethnic, and communal lines”, the UN’s top envoy for the country said on Monday.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet appealed on Friday for the international community to intensify pressure on Myanmar’s military to stop its campaign of violence against citizens, and to insist on the prompt return to civilian rule, almost one year after seizing power in a coup.
At least four children have been killed and multiple others have been maimed during an escalation of conflict over the past week in Myanmar, said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday.
Authorities in Myanmar are being urged to conduct a full investigation into the killing of a journalist last month, reportedly during an army attack in the southeast, the UN’s educational and cultural agency, UNESCO, said on Wednesday.
The UN’s top rights official said on Monday that amidst a “profound crisis” facing access to basic human rights in Myanmar following the coup in February last year, hundreds of localized armed resistance groups have now formed across the country, triggering “widespread violence in areas that were previously stable”.
Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 1,600 people and detained more than 12,500, since the military coup last year, the UN rights office said on Tuesday.
Weapons exports to the military rulers in Myanmar by UN Member States must stop, the UN independent expert on the human rights situation in the country said on Tuesday.
The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Myanmar has doubled since February of last year, now crossing the 800,000 mark, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced on Friday.
Marking the first anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar, the independent UN expert monitoring the country implored States on Tuesday to take more robust action, reiterating his call for an arms embargo to stop the killing of innocent people.
A “funding crunch” has put millions of people in Yemen at risk of catastrophe, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday, in support of an urgent appeal to donors to fund the humanitarian response in the war-torn country.
