Myanmar human rights conditions hit new low, says UN
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Rohingya refugees take part in a protest rally inside a refugee camp to mark the ninth-year anniversary of their exodus, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Aug 25.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Human rights in Myanmar have worsened, with widespread abuses against the Rohingya by both the military and Arakan Army, including killings, torture, and forced displacement.
- The military-influenced election secured junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s presidency amid ongoing violence causing over 8,075 civilian deaths and 3.6 million internally displaced people.
- Illegal rare-earth mining has expanded rapidly, funding conflict and causing severe environmental pollution affecting local communities and neighbouring countries like Thailand.
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GENEVA – Human rights conditions in Myanmar have sunk to a new low, with widespread abuses against the Rohingya minority and a booming illicit economy driven partly by illegal rare-earth mining deepening civilian suffering, the United Nations said on Aug 25.
The UN Human Rights Office report, covering June 2025 to May 2026, said unrelenting conflict, military violence and a growing “conflict economy” were exposing civilians to severe hardship.
Both Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army, which controls much of western Rakhine state, had committed widespread, systematic violations against Rohingya communities, including killings, torture, forced recruitment, forced labour, arbitrary detention and displacement. Neither responded to a Reuters request for comment.
Nine years after the 2017 exodus that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee, and following further abuses since the 2021 coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the community remains subject to systematic discrimination, the UN said.
The military engineered an election earlier in 2026 that allowed junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to become president.
The military has continued relying on air strikes, arson and aid restrictions to impose fear and maintain control more than five years after the coup, killing at least 8,075 civilians since 2021, including 1,774 women and 1,074 children – a toll the UN said is likely far higher.
The Myanmar military has previously said it conducted limited air strikes on military targets in response to violent seizures of towns and villages by insurgents and what it describes as terrorist groups.
Internal displacement had risen to 3.6 million people, the UN said, while 12.4 million face acute hunger and some 400,000 mothers and children suffer acute malnutrition.
The UN accused the Arakan Army of arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, forced labour and land seizures targeting Rohingya in the north of Rakhine, including blocking displaced people from returning while resettling non-Rohingya on their land. Satellite imagery showed roughly 770ha seized, with witnesses describing children as young as six used for labour and former detainees reporting torture and deaths in custody.
The report also highlighted rapid expansion of illegal rare-earth mining in northern Kachin and eastern Shan states, where collapsed rule of law has fuelled illicit industries financing conflict. Satellite imagery showed 302 new mining sites in Kachin since 2021, and a jump in Shan from 12 sites before the coup to 85 after.
The UN said rare-earth trade flows peaked at an estimated US$1.4 billion (S$1.8 billion) in 2023, largely feeding China’s market. Toxic runoff has polluted waterways and farmland, contributing to miscarriages and chronic disease locally, with contamination also reaching rivers flowing into Thailand, where tests found elevated arsenic, lead, mercury and manganese, it said. REUTERS
