Over 700 civilians killed by Myanmar military in six months, UN finds

The findings highlight a devastating toll on women and children alongside severe abuses against the Rohingya community

General Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power in a military coup, is now Myanmar’s president. Photo: Reuters

Myanmar's military killed more than 700 civilians in six months, including hundreds of women and children, according to a UN report cited by the BBC.

The report from the UN Human Rights Office, covering August to January -- the six months from when the military announced elections -- verified a minimum of 702 civilian deaths, including 224 women and 153 children.

The election period has been widely described as a sham, with main opposition parties excluded from standing and large areas of the country barred from participating because of the civil war.

Air strikes remained the single largest cause of destruction and suffering, the report said.

Sagaing was the most dangerous region for civilians, with 191 deaths, including 60 women and 30 children, as the military pressed to gain ground there.

In October, 23 people, including four children, were killed and more than 60 wounded when munitions struck civilians gathered outside a school in Chaung-U township in Sagaing region.

The British broadcaster reported that participants had been holding a candlelit event to celebrate the end of Buddhist Lent and to call for the release of political prisoners.

In December, a military aircraft bombed a tea shop in Tabayin of Sagaing as people watched a football match, killing at least 19 and wounding 20 others.

The report also referenced the abuse of Rohingya people, who faced forced recruitment by the Arakan Army alongside killings, arbitrary arrests and sexual violence.

"As if the people of Myanmar have not suffered enough at the hands of the military, they have now seemingly been forgotten by those outside the country," UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said.

"Funding for localised protection efforts was in many areas the only solace from the suffering caused by constant targeting and indiscriminate attacks by the military. This pullback just compounds that injury,” he added.

The military seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government, jailing its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sparking a civil war in which thousands have been killed and millions displaced.

Large areas of the country remain under the control of armed opposition groups, the BBC said.

Rebels made sweeping gains more than two years ago but have since been put on the back foot, with forced conscription and increased drone power putting the military on the offensive across most of the country.

In April, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing became president.

The parliament is now filled with his loyalists, with the armed forces guaranteed a quarter of the seats and the military's own party, the USDP, winning nearly 80 percent of the remaining seats.