Myanmar flood submerges Ponngyun IDP camp, displacing over 1,000 and triggering urgent need for aid

/in

Mizzima

Heavy monsoon rains and runoff from nearby hills have submerged an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp with more than 200 households in Ponngyun Township, Rakhine State, displacing over 1,000 people and prompting urgent appeals for emergency assistance.

Flooding began on 16 June following continuous rain, and by 18 June, water levels had risen significantly in the camp area, which is located along a natural waterway.

A representative from the Ponngyun Youth Organization said the camp was overwhelmed by floodwaters coming down from the mountain, forcing families to flee without their belongings. The camp’s residents have been living there for more than one and a half years after fleeing fighting between the Arakan Army and the military junta.

“When we went to inspect this morning, everything was gone—pots, bowls, blankets, bedding. People are now left with nothing,” said a volunteer who visited the site. The displaced people are now in urgent need of shelter, food, clean water, and basic supplies.

As of the afternoon of 18 June, rain continued to fall in Ponngyun Township. The situation is still being monitored by local youth organizations, including Pauktaw Youth Organization.

According to the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), strong monsoon winds are prevailing in the Bay of Bengal, with a low-pressure system developing near southwestern Bangladesh. Rainfall is expected to continue across Myanmar through the evening of 18 June, with heavy downpours likely in parts of Bago, upper Sagaing, and Tanintharyi Regions, as well as Rakhine, Kachin, Karen, Chin, and Mon States.

The DMH also warned that cumulonimbus clouds are forming in several regions and states, including Rakhine, bringing risks of strong winds, thunderstorms, lightning, and hail. Residents were advised to take necessary precautions.

The National Unity Government’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management also issued a weather alert, stating that heavy rain is likely in Sagaing Region and Kachin, Shan, Rakhine, Karen, and Mon States on 21 and 22 June. It urged people living near rivers, dams, and reservoirs to closely monitor forecasts and remain alert to the dangers of flash floods or sudden inundation caused by dam releases or breaches.

Local humanitarian organizations say the affected families are currently sheltering in nearby elevated areas and require immediate assistance. They have called on humanitarian groups to respond swiftly before the weather worsens and access becomes more difficult.

Airbus divests from Chinese arms company following global campaign

/in

Justice For Myanmar and Info Birmanie welcome move and call on Airbus to use leverage from its continued business in China to end the supply of arms to the Myanmar military

Justice For Myanmar and Info Birmanie welcome Airbus’ decision to divest from AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited (AviChina), in which it was the single largest international shareholder at 5.03%. The investment was valued at US$140 million on June 30, 2024.

The divestment follows a broad-based campaign involving civil society organisations, strike groups, trade unions, protesters and individuals all over the world who pressured Airbus to use its leverage on Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to end its business with the Myanmar military, or divest.

A September 2024 report by Justice For Myanmar and Info Birmanie exposed Airbus’ significant investment in the AVIC publicly listed subsidiary, AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited.

AviChina’s products include the K-8 trainer/light attack aircraft and the Y-12 multi-purpose aircraft, both of which continue to be used by the Myanmar Air Force for indiscriminate airstrikes across the country.

Airbus completed its divestment from AviChina on April 1, 2025, and acknowledged it in financial information published for the three-month period ending 31 March. In an email response to Justice For Myanmar and Info Birmanie, a spokesperson of Airbus confirmed, “Airbus SE completed the sale of the entirety of its shares in AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited, a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). Airbus does not have any equity investments in AVIC.”

The company refused to comment further, citing a complaint currently pending at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the Netherlands regarding Airbus’ business relationship with AVIC, filed by a Myanmar civil society organisation.

Airbus remains a significant investor in the Chinese aviation industry, despite China’s well-documented strategy of military-civil fusion. As detailed in the Airbusted report, Airbus operates multiple legal entities in China, including joint ventures, in large part with AVIC and its subsidiaries.

Airbus’ partnerships with AVIC-controlled companies are inconsistent with Airbus’ human rights due diligence responsibilities, as companies operating under the oversight of AVIC continue to supply weapons – including military aircraft – to the Myanmar military. In doing so, AVIC risks aiding and abetting international crimes committed by the Myanmar military.

It remains unclear to what extent, if any, Airbus has used its leverage over AVIC to challenge continued exports of weapons to the Myanmar junta.

Yet, under international standards on business and human rights – including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises – Airbus is expected to use its leverage to pressure AVIC to cease all business with the Myanmar military, or, if this is unsuccessful, to responsibly disengage from its partnerships with AVIC.

In Myanmar, indiscriminate aerial attacks have continued even as rescue workers searched for survivors following the devastating Sagaing earthquake that struck Myanmar in March 2025.

The Myanmar Air Force can wage its aerial campaign of terror only through the continued supply of aircraft and associated weapons, essential consumables and maintenance, repair and overhaul from foreign partners.

By investing in AviChina, Airbus was financially supporting and profiting from AviChina’s continued development and marketing of military aircraft and the export of these aircraft to the Myanmar military.  

Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says:

“Airbus’ divestment sends a strong signal to AVIC and the Chinese government that supplying military aircraft and associated weaponry to the Myanmar junta carries financial and reputational costs.  

“China remains the principal supplier of arms, dual use goods, technology and training to the Myanmar military and this complicity must end.

“It’s imperative that Airbus take further action and use the leverage they have over AVIC in China to cut all support for the Myanmar military, or end its business with AVIC all together.”

Johanna Chardonnieras, coordinator for Info Birmanie, says:

“This divestment must be a wake-up call for other companies, particularly European companies, directly or indirectly involved with the Burmese junta. There is a legal framework at national, European and international level, and extensive documentation of the war crimes committed by the Burmese junta, which companies can no longer ignore.

“Airbus’s discreet disinvestment from AviChina does not mark the end of a responsibility, but rather an awakening. It is now up to our institutions, in particular in French, Spanish and German institutions whose governments are the three main shareholders in Airbus, to shed full light on the contracts and links between Airbus and the AVIC group and its subsidiaries.

“Legal tools, such as European sanctions and the duty of vigilance, must be applied. When our institutions fail to enforce them, they jeopardise their credibility, relegating the application of their decisions to civil society players.”

‍

More information

Read the Airbusted report in English here and in French here

Crimes Against Humanity

/in ,

လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သည့်ရာဇဝတ်မှု (CAH) ကို ကျူးလွန်ခြင်း သည် ကြီးလေးသည့် နိုင်ငံတကာရာ ဇဝတ်မှုကို ကျူးလွန်ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။

ကြီးလေးသော နိုင်ငံတကာရာဇ၀တ်မှုဆိုသည်မှာ စစ်ရာဇ၀တ်မှု၊ လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သည့် ရာဇဝတ်မှု၊ လူမျိုးပြုန်းစေမှု အပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာလူ့အခွင့်အရေးဥပဒေနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ လူသားချင်း စာနာထောက်ထားမှုဆိုင်ရာ ဥပဒေများကို ပြင်းထန်စွာ ချိုးဖောက်သည့် ပြစ်မှုများ ဖြစ်သည်။

လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သည့် ရာဇ၀တ်မှုများတွင် လူသတ်မှု၊ နှိပ်စက်ညှဉ်းပန်းမှု၊ မုဒိမ်းမှု၊ လိင်ပိုင်း ဆိုင်ရာနှင့် ဂျင်ဒါအခြေပြု ရာဇ၀တ်မှုများ၊ နိုင်ငံတွင်းမှ နှင်ထုတ်ခြင်းနှင့် အတင်းအကြပ်လွှဲ ပြောင်းခြင်း၊ သို့မဟုတ် အရပ်သားများအပေါ် ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် သို့မဟုတ် စနစ်တကျ ကျုးလွန် သည့် ရာဇ၀တ်မှုများ ပါဝင်သည်။

ကျူးလွန်မှုဖြစ်ပွားသည့် နယ်မြေအကျယ်အဝန်း၊ အချိန်အပိုင်းအခြားနှင့် ပစ်မှတ်ထားခံရသူ အရေအတွက်တို့သည် တိုက်ခိုက်မှုတစ်ခု ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် ဖြစ်ပွားခြင်းရှိ၊ မရှိ စဉ်းစားဆုံးဖြတ် ရာ၌ အခရာကျသည်။ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုတစ်ခုသည် တသီးတခြားစီ ဖြစ်ပွားခြင်းမျိုး မဟုတ်ဘဲ အစီအစဥ်တ ကျ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုမျိုးဖြစ်နေပါက စနစ်တကျတိုက်ခိုက်မှုဟု သတ်မှတ်နိုင်သည်။ ဥပမာ – လုံခြုံရေးတပ် ဖွဲ့များက တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအနှံ့ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကို ညှိနှိုင်းဆောင်ရွက်သည့်အခါမျိုး ဖြစ်သည်။

The Human Rights Foundation of Monland Condemns Ongoing Airstrikes Targeting Civilians in Southeastern Burma

/in

The Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) strongly condemns the ongoing airstrikes being carried out against innocent civilians by the military junta. In targeted areas of Southeastern Burma, including Mon State, Karen State, and the Tanintharyi Region, the Burmese Army has frequently deployed airstrikes and ground assaults that have deliberately aimed to instill fear and uncertainty among the unarmed and most vulnerable.

On June 9, at 2 PM, despite no ongoing clashes, at least six civilians, including three children, were killed when junta aircraft dropped bombs on Pai Yap village in Kawkareik Township, Karen State. Five bombs were dropped directly onto the area, causing significant destruction. One of the bombs hit a house being used as a classroom, where students were attending lessons. Among those killed were three young children, a female teacher, and two other residents. Thirty-five others were injured. 

The wounded were rushed to Kanyin Katai hospital with the support of local humanitarian teams and are currently undergoing treatment. Earlier that morning, junta aircraft were also seen attacking the Kyondoe area. The same day in the afternoon, they targeted Pai Yap again with airstrikes, villagers confirmed. Since June 6, the junta has increased its military presence in both Kawkareik and Kyondoe, launching continuous air and artillery attacks on civilian areas.

A HURFOM fieldworker noted, “It’s heartbreaking to hear that more than 35 civilians who were injured are currently receiving medical treatment at the hospital, with some in critical condition. There are concerns that the number of fatalities could rise. It was also reported that three homes were damaged or destroyed due to the junta’s aerial bombings.”

Just two days earlier, on June 7, the military bombed Ohntapin village in Kawkareik Township, injuring four civilians—one of them severely. In the Dawei district, another airstrike on June 7 tragically claimed the lives of a father and his young son in Taung Pyauk Sub-township, Tha Yet Chaung Township, Dawei District, despite no fighting taking place in the area.

At 11 AM, a junta jet fighter dropped two bombs on Kyauk Ai village and another two on Mae Kal village. One of the bombs exploded near a house in the Si Pin Chaung Pyar neighbourhood of Kyauk Ai, killing U Than Aung, a man in his fifties, and his 10-year-old son. Four other family members, including his wife, sustained injuries. 

U Than Aung and his son reportedly died from severe blast injuries. Their home was also destroyed in the explosion. Community members were left shaken and fearful as they tried to rescue and support the wounded.

Sources close to local resistance groups confirmed that the aircraft involved was a military jet, likely dropping 200-pound bombs. Residents believe the airstrike may have been guided by information leaked through pro-junta Telegram channels or military informants operating in the region, who have previously encouraged bombings and arrests in opposition-held areas.

Once again, civilians are paying the price for the junta’s escalating attacks, further deepening the fear and trauma already faced by communities across the region. Although the junta has announced a temporary ceasefire across the country until June 30, the situation on the ground reveals a different reality. Their ongoing attacks have fostered increasing mistrust and fear among civilians. According to the National Unity Government, between March 28 and May 30, the military junta’s air force conducted over 520 airstrikes across the country, killing 462 civilians and injuring 884.

Villagers are not combatants. They must be protected and shielded from the atrocities that continue to be carried out by the terrorist junta. Airstrikes can occur at any time and have left communities paralyzed in agony and uncertainty about their future security and safety. The international community, along with regional actors including ASEAN, must not turn a blind eye to the ongoing injustices. HURFOM reiterates our longstanding calls for a global arms embargo, targeted sanctions on aviation fuel, and an urgent referral of the human rights situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court.

Media Contact

Nai Aue Mon, HURFOM Program Director

Email: auemon@rehmonnya.org

Signal: +66 86 167 9741

Documentation in Darkness: An Overview of the Human Rights Situation in Burma Releases

/in

The Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma Releases
 Documentation in Darkness: An Overview of the Human Rights Situation in Burma January – December 2024

4th June 2025

For Immediate Release

The latest report by the Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma (ND-Burma), ‘Documentation in Darkness,’ presents an overview of the targeted assaults and attacks committed against innocent civilians between January and December 2024. ND-Burma member organizations recorded 1,032 violations across seven dates and six regions, including Yangon.

ND-Burma and its partners compiled case studies, interviews, partner reports, and eyewitness accounts to record the total number of human rights violations perpetrated by the Burmese Army, its junta-supported militias, and various Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs), alongside the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) in Burma. It is essential to emphasize, however, that the military junta is responsible for the vast majority of the crimes and violence documented and presented in this report.

ND-Burma members have observed a notable increase in the intensity and brutality of targeted assaults by the Burmese military against civilians. Our members collaborate closely with local communities in urban and rural settings to directly monitor the human rights situation on the ground. The victims of the systematic and widespread attacks by the junta serve as a poignant reminder that every number signifies a human life interrupted, permanently altered, or lost due to the Burma Army’s four-cuts campaign and the civil war. We pay tribute to each of these victims of human rights violations in acknowledgement of their pain and remain committed to ongoing advocacy for justice in Burma.

Furthermore, it is clear based on the evidence and cases presented in this report that the military and several armed resistance groups continue to disregard and undermine civilian security. The military junta continues to benefit from decades of impunity, resulting from over 75 years of civil war, and is emboldened by a lack of accountability for its crimes in any meaningful way. ND-Burma urges immediate and urgent international action on the crisis that continues to worsen as the lives of more civilians, including women and children, are increasingly at risk.

ND-Burma supports a United Nations Security Council resolution for a global arms embargo, calls for immediate UN-led humanitarian assistance to tackle the ongoing famine and crisis areas resulting from the junta’s actions, and an urgent referral of the human rights situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. We urge diplomatic, political, and economic pressure on the military junta to be intensified, and all ties with the junta to end. The preservation of human life and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms must be meaningfully enforced by holding the military regime accountable.

For more information:

Name: Nai Aue Mon

Signal: +66 86 1679 741

Name: San Htoi

Signal: +66 64 195 6721

________________________________________________________________________________

The Network for Human Rights Documentation-Burma (ND-Burma) consists of 13 organisations representing a range of ethnic nationalities, women, and former political prisoners. Since 2004, ND-Burma member organisations have been documenting human rights abuses and fighting for justice for victims. The network has ten full members and three affiliate members.

Documentation in Darkness: An Overview of the Human Rights Situation in Burma January – December 2024

/in ,

This report covers human rights violations documented by ND-Burma members and affiliates between January and December 2024. The numbers presented in this report are the totals collected by our partners in each state and region. Our findings will be contextualized with desk research alongside cases documented by ND-Burma members. The injustices perpetrated by the junta are undeniable and demand a coordinated and effective international response. 

ND-Burma and its partners use case studies, interviews, relevant partner reports, and eyewitness testimony to document the overall number of human rights abuses committed by the Burmese Army, its junta-backed militias, and all Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROS) as well as People’s Defence Forces (PDFS) in Burma. However, it is critical to note that the military junta perpetrated the overwhelming majority of the crimes and violence documented in this report. 

ND-Burma members have witnessed the Burmese military escalating their assaults on civilians with greater ferocity and brutality. The member organizations of ND-Burma work closely with local communities in urban and rural areas to closely monitor the human rights situation on the ground. Although ND-Burma is dedicated to scrutinizing the individual aspects of human rights, the broader conflict continues to escalate. The victims of the human rights violations reported by ND-Burma and its partners under the Controlled Category List are a stark reminder that each number represents a human life uprooted, irrevocably changed or extinguished under the Burma Army’s four-cuts campaign and civil war. We honour each one of these human rights victims.  

ND-Burma regularly produces reports to bring attention to the human rights situation across the country, with a focus on the atrocities taking place across our members’ regions and states. Despite their immense threats, they remain committed to sharing evidence of the crimes committed.

BAR_ JAN-DEC 2024 DarknessDownload