Myanmar escalating aerial attacks on civilians: UN probe

Detained former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi meeting with Arnaude de Baecque, resident representative of ICRC to Myanmar, in Naypyidaw on August 3, 2026. [AFP]

The Myanmar military has escalated its aerial attacks against civilians, with the conflict ravaging the country showing no signs of abating, UN investigators said Tuesday.

The military stepped up such attacks and other crimes against civilians in the lead-up to the elections completed in January, and these strikes have since "continued unabated", the United Nations' Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said.

The deeply restricted polls held by the ruling military junta delivered a walkover win for its allies in civilian politics.

The IIMM's annual report, covering July 2025 to June 2026, documented a pattern of deliberate aerial attacks on civilians, arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence committed by the Myanmar military.

"The frequency and intensity of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military and by various armed groups continued to escalate," it said.

Myanmar's ruling junta seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021 that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, ending a 10-year experiment with democracy and plunging the southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil and a humanitarian crisis.

The IIMM report said aerial attacks had targeted homes, schools -- with children often the victims -- medical facilities, religious buildings and camps for internally displaced persons, causing deaths, injuries and destruction.

"The military's increasing reliance on paramotors and drones has made attacks harder for civilians to detect, limiting their ability to flee or seek shelter," it said.

The investigators said the conflict in Rakhine State -- where the military is fighting the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group --  "intensified significantly" during the reporting period.

Across the country, "the conflicts between the military regime and various armed groups showed no signs of abating".

The team said it had collected and analysed "extensive evidence" of arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence in military-run detention facilities. These included cases linked to the 2025 law criminalising criticism of the elections.

"Numerous individuals have been arrested under the law and face up to 20 years' imprisonment and the death penalty for activities such as posting critical comments on social media."

"Behind every piece of evidence we collect are people whose lives have been devastated by these crimes," said IIMM chief Nicholas Koumjian.

"Communities across Myanmar are not only living under the constant threat of violence but are also coping with the profound and lasting impact of what they have endured."

Citing funding cuts, the investigation said it was "losing resources and capacity at a time when serious international crimes in Myanmar are only intensifying".

The IIMM was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes and prepare files for criminal prosecution.

So far it has collected and processed more than 28 million items of information and evidence from over 1,600 sources.

These include witness accounts, photographs, videos, audio material, documents, maps, geospatial imagery, social media posts and forensic evidence.

It is "very important that victims know that someone is collecting evidence", and "some day, there may be justice", said Koumjian.

The Gambia has brought a civil case against Myanmar at the United Nations' top court, accusing it of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention during the 2016 and 2017 clearance operations against the Rohingya minority.

The IIMM has provided extensive evidence in the proceedings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Koumjian said his investigation was looking at whether people outside Myanmar who are fuelling the conflict by providing weapons and materials could be prosecuted for violating sanctions or money laundering laws.

He said the Myanmar military had "never cooperated" with the investigators and their requests for information.