Beheadings, rapes, torture: Myanmar’s junta unleashes violence in rebel-held areas

MyanmarThe desperate military junta is stepping up attacks on villages that have fallen to opposition groups, carrying out beheadings, gang-rapes and torture, with women, children and the elderly among the victims, the UN’s independent human rights investigator for Myanmar said in a new document. report.

Thomas Andrews, a former US congressman from Maine, said in the report to the UN General Assembly released Friday that the junta has responded to military defeats and loss of territory by using sophisticated weapons against civilians and seeking to destroy cities it cannot control. .

Calling Myanmar “an invisible crisis” because the world’s attention is focused elsewhere, he said: “Atrocities in intensity against the people of Myanmar are being allowed by governments that allow or actively support the transfer of weapons, weapons materials and jet fuel to junta forces.”

Andrews did not name the governments. But he praised Singapore for a crackdown on arms transfers that led to a 90 percent cut by Singapore-registered companies and said US sanctions on junta-controlled state banks had disrupted military supply chains.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar lamented, however, that their actions remain an exception.

He called on all countries to address Myanmar’s “devastating human rights and humanitarian crisis” by halting the flow of arms to the junta, stepping up humanitarian aid to the millions in need and supporting efforts to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable .