Published on: 2026-08-11
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
August 11, 2026 Human Rights
The Myanmar military continues targeted attacks on civilians, including airstrikes on residential houses, schools, and camps for displaced persons. Civilians also fall victim to arbitrary detentions, torture, and sexual violence. This is stated in the annual report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.
The report covers the period from July 2025 to June 2026.
Strikes on schools and hospitals
“One of the directions we are focused on, considering the suffering occurring in Myanmar, is airstrikes [on civilians]… We are studying the command structure and how orders for such airstrikes might have been given,” said Mechanism head Nicholas Koumjian. According to him, schools are particularly frequently targeted by these strikes.
“Children often become victims of these airstrikes. Hospitals are also targeted. Our team is gathering evidence on where these attacks took place and what munitions were used,” he noted.
Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict since February 2021, when the military seized power, overthrowing the civilian government and arresting the country’s top leadership, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.
After the coup, mass protests erupted across the country, which later escalated into armed resistance. Today, armed groups opposing the military control a significant portion of the country’s territory.
Attacks intensified
According to the report, attacks intensified ahead of the elections held in January and have not abated since. UN experts documented strikes on residential houses, schools, medical facilities, religious sites, and camps for internally displaced persons. They also managed to establish the involvement of certain military units in these attacks.
© UNOPS/KMT Myanmar Army conducted airstrikes in central Magway (archival photo).
The report notes that the military is increasingly using motorized paragliders and drones. As a result, civilians have less time to notice an approaching threat and take cover.
“Destroyed Lives”
“Behind every piece of evidence we find, there are people whose lives have been shattered by these crimes,” Kumjian emphasized.
According to him, the residents of Myanmar are also trying to cope with the severe and long-term consequences of the crisis.
During the investigation, numerous cases of torture and sexual violence in detention facilities controlled by the military were documented. In particular, these involve cases related to a law adopted in 2025, which provides criminal liability for criticizing elections. According to this law, people face up to 20 years in prison or the death penalty for publishing critical comments on the internet.
Although most of the collected evidence concerns the actions of the military and related armed formations, the Mechanism is also investigating violations allegedly committed by armed groups opposing the military regime.
The report’s conclusions are based on information from more than 1,600 sources, including over 750 eyewitness testimonies, as well as photographs, video recordings, forensic examination materials, and satellite images.
Independent investigative mechanism
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and preserve evidence of the most serious crimes committed in the country since 2011, for use in future judicial proceedings.
The Mechanism itself does not have prosecutorial powers, but transmits the collected materials to national and international judicial bodies. Among them are the International Criminal Court, the courts of Argentina handling cases of crimes against the Rohingya community, as well as the International Court of Justice, which is considering whether Myanmar violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide during the campaign against the Rohingya in 2016–2017.
In 2017, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, who was then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the mass flight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people to Bangladesh a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
Please note; This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.