Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC: Application for an arrest warrant in the situation in Bangladesh/Myanmar

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Since 14 November 2019, we have been investigating alleged crimes committed during the 2016 and 2017 waves of violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, and the subsequent exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

After an extensive, independent and impartial investigation, my Office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh.

My Office alleges that these crimes were committed between 25 August 2017 and 31 December 2017 by the armed forces of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, supported by the national police, the border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians.

This is the first application for an arrest warrant against a high-level Myanmar government official that my Office is filing. More will follow.

Today’s application draws upon a wide variety of evidence from numerous sources such as witness testimonies, including from a number of insider witnesses, documentary evidence and authenticated scientific, photographic and video materials.

In collecting this evidence, the Office has benefitted from the crucial support of States, civil society partners and international organisations. In particular, the cooperation, the confidence and the steadfast commitment from the Rohingya community, the support of the Government of Bangladesh, and excellent cooperation from the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar have been essential to advancing this investigation.

I wish in particular to express my deep, profound gratitude to the Rohingya. More than a million members of their community have been forced to flee violence in Myanmar. We are grateful to all those who provided testimony and support to my Office, those that have shared their stories, those that have given us information and material.

In my visits to the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar over the last three years, including just yesterday, I met with Rohingya women who spoke with clarity and purpose about the need for accountability. I sat with youth activists who wanted to play their own role in seeking justice. And I spoke with men of all ages including the old and the sick, who were united in demanding to be seen and to have accountability for what befell them. Our work, the work of the International Criminal Court, seeks to vindicate their resilience and their hope in the power of the law.

It is now for the judges of the International Criminal Court to determine whether this application meets the necessary standard for the issuance of an arrest warrant. In the event that the independent judges of the ICC issue the requested warrant, we will coordinate closely with the Registrar of the Court in all efforts to arrest the named individual.

When I first travelled to Bangladesh, I announced that we would seek to accelerate our investigations, and we committed to providing additional resources in that effort. Since then, we have reinvigorated our activities in line with that promise. Today marks a culmination of this renewed focus in relation to this situation.

We will continue this focus in the coming weeks and months as we submit additional applications in this situation.

In doing so, we will be demonstrating, together with all of our partners, that the Rohingya have not been forgotten. That they, like all people around the world, are entitled to the protection of the law.

ICC

UNICEF urges immediate action on $300 billion climate pledge to protect children’s futures

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UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell called for urgent action on the new $300 billion climate commitment to protect children’s futures. The pledge by rich countries to combat global climate change was announced on 24 November at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The UNICEF statement reads as follows.

UNICEF stands ready to work with governments, partners, and the private sector to ensure that the new $300 billion climate finance target agreed today at COP29 is met, and that it is followed by concrete climate action – action which is desperately needed by the world’s 2.4 billion children to protect their rights, lives and futures.

“We welcome partners’ efforts to emphasize the unique and disproportionate impacts of climate change on children in the Global Goal on Adaptation. This agreement is a positive response to the demands made by children and young people at COP29.

“As we look ahead, we encourage all countries to use the coming weeks and months to increase their ambition in their new national climate plans – also known as National Determined Contributions 3.0 – and in their National Adaptation Plans. It is essential that these plans prioritize the rights and wellbeing of children.

“Children cannot afford for world leaders to backtrack on their promises when storms are destroying their schools, wildfires are harming their lungs, their homes and health services are being washed away, and life-sustaining crops are dying from droughts.

“We urge world leaders to begin work immediately to ensure the world can reconvene at COP30 with the sense of urgency and ambition required to meet our promises to the world’s children.”

Mizzima

Myanmar tops grim world ranking of landmine victims

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With violence surging, Myanmar has more casualties than Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

BANGKOK – Myanmar has for the first time recorded the most casualties in the world from antipersonnel landmines, with 1,003 victims in 2023, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, or ICBL, said in its annual report launched in Bangkok on Wednesday. 

Myanmar has been embroiled in conflict since the military ousted an elected government in an early 2021 coup, with pro-democracy activists taking up arms and linking up with ethnic minority insurgents to fight to end army rule.

Both sides are using landmines in their battles, the ICBL said, though the anti-junta forces are more likely to deploy crudely made booby traps, with villagers the most likely victims.

“Myanmar’s armed forces have repeatedly used antipersonnel mines since seizing power in a coup,” said the Geneva-based group, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its campaign to ban the weapons, in its report.

“This use represents a significant increase on use in previous years, including use around infrastructure such as mobile phone towers, extractive enterprises, and energy pipelines,” it said.

Myanmar recorded 545 landmine victims the previous year, it said.

At the global level, at least 5,757 casualties, 1,983 people killed and 3,663 injured, from landmines and unexploded ordnance were recorded for 2023 and the numbers are increasing, the group said. Around the world, 58 countries are plagued with landmine contamination. 

The second-highest tally of casualties over the past year was in Syria, with 933, down from 2,729 the previous year when it had the world’s worst tally of landmine casualties.

Afghanistan had the third most this year with 651, but a sharp drop from the 1,824 casualties it reported in 2019 when its toll was the world’s worst. War-torn Ukraine was fourth this year with 580 casualties.

Reflecting the surge in fighting in Myanmar since the military seized power, the ICBL said most of the casualties reported there during 2023 and 2024 appeared to be from mines planted within the past two years.

“The Myanmar armed forces have previously admitted … that they use antipersonnel mines in areas where they are under attack,” the group said. 

“Mine casualties are often recorded on the outskirts of Myanmar army camps, which is another indicator of new use.”

‘Extensive contamination’

The group said it had reports of the Myanmar army threatening that farmers must pay for antipersonnel mines detonated by their livestock. It said it had also found evidence of the army “using civilians as ‘guides’ to walk in front of its units in mine-affected areas, effectively to detonate landmines.”

“This is a grave violation of international humanitarian and human rights law,” it said.

The group said it also had numerous reports of villagers falling victim to mines planted by anti-junta forces.

“The extent of landmine contamination is not known, but is likely to be extensive given the ongoing use and production by both Myanmar armed Forces and NSAGs,” it said, referring to non-state armed groups.

As of September 2023, suspected contamination by landmines and unexploded ordnance was reported in 168 of Myanmar’s townships, or 51% of all townships, it said.

The ICBL launched its report days ahead of the Fifth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, as the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty is formally known. Parties meet in Cambodia on Nov. 25.

The group called for an immediate halt to the use of the weapons and for all countries to sign up to the treaty that it championed.

“This flagship report records a shocking number of civilians killed or injured by antipersonnel mines, including children,” said Tamar Gabelnick, director of the ICBL. 

“Any use of antipersonnel mines by any actor under any circumstances is unacceptable and must be condemned. All countries that have not yet done so should join the Mine Ban Treaty to turn back this tide and end the suffering caused by these vile weapons.”

Edited by Mike Firn

RFA News

Children make up nearly 40% of Myanmar’s 3.4 million displaced: UN

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The junta and related groups have killed more than 670 children since the 2021 military coup.

Children make up nearly 40% of the more than 3.4 million people displaced in Myanmar due to the civil war, UNICEF said Thursday. 

The findings from United Nations Children’s Fund came as an organization that monitors conflict in Myanmar said the ruling junta and affiliated groups have killed more than 670 children since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, sparking the conflict.

In a statement on Thursday — a day after World Children’s Day — UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said that the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is “reaching a critical inflection point,” with escalating conflict and climate shocks “putting children and families at unprecedented risk.”

He said that approximately 1 million people have been affected by the country’s war, which was sparked amid public opposition to the military takeover, and devastation caused by late September’s Cyclone Yagi — Southeast Asia’s worst storm of the year.

Chaiban said that during a recent trip to Myanmar’s embattled Kachin state, he saw children “cut off from vital services, including healthcare and education, and suffering from the effects of violence and displacement.”

“[I] saw firsthand how vulnerable children and other civilians are in conflict-affected areas and the urgent need to uphold international humanitarian law to protect them from such brutal attacks,” he said.

Chaiban noted that minors account for 32% of the more than 1,000 people injured and killed by landmines and other explosive devices since the start of the conflict.

“The increasing use of deadly weapons in civilian areas, including airstrikes and landmines hitting homes, hospitals, and schools, has severely restricted the already limited safe spaces for children, robbing them of their right to safety and security,” he said, adding that “the situation is dire.”

Chaiban called for all stakeholders in Myanmar to guarantee safe and unhindered aid, especially for children and families in conflict zones, to remove administrative barriers and ensure minimum operating standards and to protect children from grave violations.

“International humanitarian law must be upheld, with a focus on protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure – including schools and hospitals – and ensuring safe passage for those fleeing from violence,” he said.

Additionally, he urged the international community to increase its support for the country’s children through funding and advocacy.

“The cost of inaction is far too high — Myanmar’s children cannot afford to wait,” he said.

Hundreds of children killed

Also on Thursday, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma reported that, as of Nov. 20, the junta and its affiliate groups had killed at least 671 children in Myanmar since the coup nearly four years ago.

The group said that the number showed a year-on-year increase in child mortality rates, attributable to the conflict.

In 2021, AAPP said, 101 children under the age of 18 were reported killed, followed by 136 the following year. By 2023, the number had increased to 208 and, by the end of 2024, had reached 226 child fatalities.

In one of the worst incidents since the coup, the junta bombed Konlaw village in Kachin state’s Momauk township on Nov. 15, killing nine displaced people, including seven children, the group said.

Amid an escalating toll of child casualties caused by airstrikes, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, the shadow National Unity Government’s Minister of Women, Youth, and Children’s Affairs, called for urgent measures to ban the sale of aviation fuel to Myanmar’s military.

“We urgently request the cessation of aircraft fuel sales to the military regime, as it is being used to carry out brutal attacks that result in the killing of children,” she said during remarks delivered at a World Children’s Day event in Myanmar on Wednesday.

Attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for comment on the situation facing children in Myanmar went unanswered Thursday.

According to the AAPP, junta authorities have killed at least 5,974 civilians since the military coup.

RFA News

Nearly 500 cases of sexual assault against women in Myanmar’s conflict

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Rights groups say that the data reflects only cases they have verified and the true number is likely to be much higher.

Nearly 500 cases of sexual assault have been documented against women during Myanmar’s civil war, although the true number is likely much higher, women’s rights groups said Wednesday.

In the aftermath of the military‘s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat, civilians have been caught in the crossfire of battles between the junta and ethnic armies or community-led defense groups.

On Wednesday, Thailand‘s Women’s League of Burma, or WLB, said that women have endured some of the worst treatment since the takeover, including arrest, torture, sexual assault and even murder.

“Incidents of sexual violence are also on the rise, with women being abused in front of their husbands and family members — situations marked by extreme inhumanity,” said WLB Secretary General Moon Nay Li. “Some women are gang-raped by soldiers, while others are killed.”

The WLB said that between Feb. 1, 2021, and June 2024, it had documented 492 cases of sexual assault against women, including at least 13 cases where women were raped and then killed.

It said that its data reflect only the cases the group was able to verify and that the true numbers are likely to be much higher — potentially twice the rate reported prior to the coup.

WLB‘s report came weeks after a column of more than 100 junta soldiers attacked villages in war-torn Sagaing region’s Budalin township on Oct. 23, including Sai Pyin Lay village, where more than 50 young female hostages were allegedly sexually assaulted over the course of three days, according to a source familiar with the incident.

“During those three days, the soldiers summoned each woman repeatedly, subjecting them to rape and sexual assault,” the source told RFA Burmese, adding that the alleged perpetrators were soldiers from the junta’s No.33 and No.77 Light Infantry Divisions.

Zu Zu May Yoon, the founder of the Women’s Organization of Political Prisoners, told RFA that women arrested for protesting the coup have also faced sexual assault during interrogation.

“In interrogation centers, women are subjected to severe abuse, including being penetrated with batons in their private areas,” he said. “During interrogations, junta authorities reportedly burn pens with matches to release scalding ink and then apply it to these areas. Such acts reflect the extreme brutality of the military.”

Women who are assaulted rarely report the abuse due to shame and various threats, he added.

As a result, some women suffering from severe physical and mental trauma ultimately feel forced to flee their communities for safety elsewhere.

RFA has been unable to independently verify reports of sexual assaults by the military. Attempts to reach Major General Zaw Min Tun, the military junta’s authorized spokesperson, for comment went unanswered Wednesday.

Civilians and People’s Defense Forces

A resident of Sagaing told RFA that the junta has “increasingly targeted women” in the region with “threats, rape and killings.”

“Women face daily intimidation, and in Sagaing, numerous cases of rape have been reported since the [conflict] began, averaging at least one incident per month,” said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

But sources in the region told RFA that it isn’t just junta soldiers who are committing crimes against women.

In August, a 14-year-old student was raped by a resident of Sagaing’s Yinmarbin township, according to a family member of the victim who said that while a case was filed with authorities, the perpetrator has yet to face punishment.

“In terms of law enforcement, I must say that it is very weak,” said the family member, who also declined to be named. “The incident took place two months ago, but hasn’t been prosecuted or brought before the Department of Justice. Victims of these crimes are like orphans, unsure of who to turn to for help.”

Displaced people from Palaw township, Yinmabin district, Sagaing region, are seen on Nov. 21, 2023.
Displaced people from Palaw township, Yinmabin district, Sagaing region, are seen on Nov. 21, 2023.  (Anyar Pyit Tine Htaung Lay Myar via Facebook) 

According to a list compiled by the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs of the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, there have been 258 reported cases of sexual assault against women since the coup, with more than half of them committed by junta troops.

“Of the 258 reported cases, 148 were committed by the military junta’s troops,” said NUG Minister Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe. “We have meticulously documented these cases and are collaborating with the United Nations to ensure justice. The remaining cases include 89 committed by civilians and 33 by [armed opposition groups].”

The minister added that in cases where members of the People‘s Defense Force of civilian paramilitary groups aligned against the junta under the shadow government are responsible, the NUG’s Ministry of Defense “will take action under martial law,” while crimes committed by civilians will be addressed under civil law.

However, she acknowledged that in some areas controlled by the armed opposition, instability has “led to delays in the legal process.”

Non-conflict abuse

Meanwhile, women’s rights groups warned that the threats faced by women are a concern “not only in war zones,” but also in non-conflict areas, and that “perpetrators must be prosecuted and held accountable.”

Last month, international labor group the Business and Human Rights Resource Center said in a report that abuse against women is far from rare in Myanmar’s manufacturing sector, as a deteriorating economy leaves them more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and violence.

The group documented 155 cases of abuse in Myanmar factories, linked to 87 international companies, between Dec. 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, with 37% of them gender-based incidents including “verbal, physical and sexual abuse and harassment, often for not meeting unreasonable production targets.”

An economy in free-fall since the military ousted an elected government has exacerbated the problem of exploitation for many in Myanmar as factory owners and supervisors know that employees are increasingly desperate for cash as inflation erodes living standards, labor activists told RFA.

At least 1,853 people have died in military custody, including 88 children and 125 women, since Myanmar’s military coup – many after being tortured – a U.N. report on the situation of human rights in the country said in September.

Sexual violence is also common in detention, the U.N. report said, “including rape, and sexualized torture or ill-treatment, including forced nudity in front of others.”

RFA News

Two women killed in airstrike on Oakkan village, Kawlin Township in northwest Myanmar

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On 21 October, at 10:30 am, two women were killed in an airstrike launched by Myanmar’s junta on Oakkan village, located in the western part of Kawlin Township, Sagaing Region. Kawlin Info, a local news monitoring group, confirmed that several other villagers were injured in the bombing.

“The bomb hit the centre of Oakkan village, resulting in the deaths of two women, with reports of injuries. Further details are still being gathered,” said an official from Kawlin Info Group.

Shortly after the initial attack, another airstrike occurred at 11:00 am in the western part of Kawlin.

Oakkan village is a thriving community, home to both local residents and people displaced by conflict in Kawlin town. The village serves as a hub where villagers and displaced individuals live and trade together.

“There has been no fighting in the area, so this is clearly an attack targeting civilians. Rescue teams are enroute, but we’re still awaiting further details,” said Ko Thae Gyi, head of the People-To-People Group, which assists refugees fleeing violence in western Kawlin.

While clashes between military forces and local defence groups have taken place in areas bordering Kawlin and Wuntho in recent days, the western part of Kawlin Township has remained conflict-free.

This attack comes less than a month after military forces carried out an airstrike on Oakkan village on 30 September, which resulted in the deaths of four people, injuries to others, and significant damage to homes.

Mizzima