A United Nations expert has called on the international community to do more to address the crisis in Myanmar triggered by last year’s coup as the number of people killed in the military’s crackdown on its opponents rose above 2,000.
“Too much is at stake for Myanmar and its people to accept complacency and inaction by the international community,” Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement at the end of an eight-day visit to Malaysia.
“Junta forces have killed more than 2,000 civilians, arrested more than 14,000, displaced more than 700,000, driving the number of internally displaced persons well over one million, and plunged the country into an economic and humanitarian crisis that threatens the lives and wellbeing of millions.
“The military’s attacks on the people of Myanmar constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. No one has been spared the impact of the military’s violence.”
Andrews noted that even before the coup, the Myanmar military was notorious for committing atrocities against civilians, citing the brutal 2017 “genocidal attacks” on the mostly Muslim Rohingya.
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