Myanmar: UN investigators document deliberate military attacks on civilians

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Myanmar’s military has carried out a sustained campaign of deliberate attacks on civilians – including airstrikes on homes, schools and camps for displaced people, alongside arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence – according to Human Rights Council-appointed investigators.

Why the Myanmar crisis matters

• Civilians under fire: airstrikes on homes, schools, hospitals.
• Abuses continue: torture, arbitrary detention and sexual violence documented.
• Evidence preserved: information from more than 1,600 sources gathered to support prosecutions.

The findings come in the annual report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), covering July 2025 to June 2026, published Tuesday.

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“One of the areas that we’re concentrating on is, because of the suffering that’s happening in Myanmar, are the airstrikes [against communities] that are occurring…We’re looking at the command structure and how the orders would be given for such airstrikes,” said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Mechanism.

“In particular there are many airstrikes targeting, hitting schools. Children are often the victims of these airstrikes and also hospitals. So our team is collecting that evidence of where it has occurred, the kind of munitions that are used.”

Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict since the military seized power in February 2021, overthrowing the civilian government and arresting top leaders including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. 

The coup also triggered nationwide protests and subsequent armed resistance movements which control large swathes of the fractured country.

Relentless attacks

Attacks intensified in the run-up to elections completed in January and have not let up since, the report found. 

Investigators traced strikes on homes, schools, medical facilities, religious buildings and displacement camps, and identified some of the military units responsible. 

They also found the military’s growing use of motorised power gliders and drones has made attacks harder for civilians to see coming, cutting the time people have to flee or find shelter.

Lives devastated

“Behind every piece of evidence we collect are people whose lives have been devastated by these crimes,” said Mr. 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.”

Investigators also documented widespread torture and sexual violence in military-run detention facilities, including cases tied to a 2025 law that criminalizes criticism of the elections – under which people have been jailed for up to 20 years, or face the death penalty, for acts as minor as posting critical comments online. 

While most of the evidence concerns the military and allied militias, the Mechanism said it is also investigating abuses by armed groups opposed to the military.

The findings draw on more than 1,600 sources, including over 750 witness accounts, along with photographs, video, forensic evidence and satellite imagery.

What is the IIMM?

The mechanism was set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and preserve evidence of the gravest crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011, for use in future prosecutions. 

It doesn’t prosecute cases itself but shares its evidence with courts and authorities that do.

These include the International Criminal Court and courts in Argentina pursuing cases over crimes against the Rohingya, and the International Court of Justice, which is weighing whether Myanmar breached the Genocide Convention during the 2016–2017 crackdown on ethnic Rohingya communities.

In 2017, then UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemned the Myanmar military’s persecution of the Rohingya who fled in their hundreds of thousands to neighbouring Bangladesh. “The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” Zeid told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.