Myanmar’s military rulers are preventing life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching people who need it as the country falls deeper into violence, the United Nations human rights chief has said.
Addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said the military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, was engaged in a “systematic denial” of humanitarian relief to the millions of civilians in need of help.
“This obstruction of life-saving aid is deliberate and targeted, a calculated denial of fundamental rights and freedoms for large swathes of the population,” said Turk.
The generals plunged Myanmar into crisis when they seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Turk said in the first six months of this year his office had seen a 33 percent increase in indiscriminate airstrikes compared with the same period in 2022. He noted that attacks on civilian targets, including villages, schools, hospitals, and places of worship, were rising.
The UN had also documented repeated incidents of sexual violence, mass killings, extrajudicial executions, beheadings, dismemberments, and mutilations.
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