Human Rights Situation weekly update (October 22 to 31, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Oct 22 to 31, 2023

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Kachin State, Shan State, and Bago Region from October 22nd to 31st. Military Junta arrested over 50 civilians and used them as human shields within a week. They burnt and killed 5 civilians from Tabayin Township in Sagaing Region on October 27th. After the leaked the information about farmers from Waw Township had to pay money to the Military Junta troop, the Junta threatened and forced them to sign the document that the news is not real and paid in Bago Region.

Over 30 civilians were killed and 34 injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. Around 11 civilians were arrested and 9 were killed by the Military Junta within a week. Civilians left their places 8 times within a week because of the Military Junta Troop’s matching and raiding. An underaged child died and 7 children were injured when the Military Junta committed violations.

Monthly Overview of the Human Rights Situation (October 2023)

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Throughout October, the regime routinely targeted civilians in an ongoing campaign to undermine their fundamental freedoms. Despite the daily challenges, the people are resilient and have not given up their fight for democracy. The Burma Army knows that they are losing the war they have waged, and in response, they have scaled up attacks to try and instill terror and fear.
The Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) remains committed to documenting the assaults and attacks indicative of military impunity. Evidence is necessary to ensure justice for victims and survivors.
While carrying out these horrendous attacks, the junta is trying to present an illusion to the international community that the situation in the country is normal when, in reality, it is anything but the contrary. The junta invited government officials, diplomats, ethnic revolution organizations, and even NGOs to an event commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). The NCA is not a successful pathway or platform to peace in Burma, but in their attempts to appear legitimate and committed to ‘peace,’ the junta held a lavish ceremony.

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Thousands feared displaced in new Myanmar clashes: UN

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Among those who have fled their homes in northern Shan State, several hundred people have reportedly crossed the border into China seeking safety

Thousands of people are feared to have been displaced by four days of fighting in northern Myanmar, including several hundred who reportedly fled to China, the United Nations (UN) said on Monday.

On Friday, three powerful ethnic armed organisations attacked junta troops across a swathe of northern Shan State, home to a planned billion-dollar rail link, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) have since said they have seized several military posts and key roads.

The three groups—which analysts say can call on at least 15,000 fighters between them—have fought regularly with the military over autonomy and control of resources.

“As of 30 October, over 6,200 individuals have reportedly been newly displaced” by the fighting, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

“Additionally, several hundred people have reportedly crossed the border into China in search of safety.”

It said it expected more people to be displaced amid ongoing clashes.

One man in the town of Hsenwi—which sits on a vital road to China—told AFP on Monday that he was sheltering with around 100 others in a Buddhist monastery.

“We did not have a place to escape,” said the man, who requested anonymity for security reasons. “We tried to leave but we could not drive out of the town as there was ongoing fighting.”

China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that it was “closely following” the fighting and called on all sides to prevent the situation from escalating.

Myriad ethnic armed organisations operate across Myanmar’s ethnic states and have for decades clashed with the government.

Since the military seized power in 2021, several of these groups have allied with People’s Defence Forces that have sprung up to battle the junta.

More than 1.6 million people have been displaced by the violence that has flared since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, according to a UN estimate.

Myanmar Now News

Number of displaced worldwide has reached a record 114 million: UNHCR

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Many of those made homeless were victims of ongoing conflicts in Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN refugee agency said

The number of people displaced from their homes worldwide is estimated to have exceeded 114 million, the United Nations said on Wednesday—a record figure.

The main drivers in the first half of 2023 were the conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a prolonged humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan; and a combination of drought, floods and insecurity in Somalia, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said in a statement.

“The number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights violations globally is likely to have exceeded 114 million at the end of September,” the agency said.

“The world’s focus now is—rightly—on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. But globally, far too many conflicts are proliferating or escalating, shattering innocent lives and uprooting people,” said UN refugees chief Filippo Grandi.

He blamed the international community’s inability to solve or prevent conflicts and urged better cooperation to end violence and allow displaced people to return home.

Record numbers

The number of displaced people worldwide jumped from 108.4 million people at the end of last year to 110 million people by the end of June 2023, the UNHCR said in its Mid-Year Trends Report.

A UNHCR spokesman confirmed to AFP the 114 million figure at the end of September was a record since the agency began collecting data in 1975.

The new estimate precedes the outbreak of the war between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas gunmen poured into Israel on October 7, beginning an attack that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, while also kidnapping more than 220 others, according to Israeli officials.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says retaliatory Israeli strikes have killed more than 6,500 people.

The number of people internally displaced within Gaza is estimated at about 1.4 million, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

One in 73 displaced

More than one in 73 people around the world are forcibly displaced, the UNHCR said.

At mid-2023, there were 35.8 million refugees who had fled abroad, and 57 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Millions more are asylum seekers or in need of international protection.

Almost one-third of all displaced people originated from just three countries: Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine.

Low- and middle-income countries hosted 75 percent of refugees and other people in need of international protection.

The countries hosting the most refugees are Iran and Turkey at 3.4 million each; Germany and Colombia with 2.5 million each; and Pakistan with 2.1 million.

Nearly half of Syria’s population remained displaced at mid-2023: 6.7 million people within the country and 6.7 million refugees and asylum-seekers, with most hosted in Turkey.

Globally, 1.6 million new individual asylum applications were made between January and June 2023—the largest number ever recorded in the first six months of any given year.

Of those, 540,600 claims were in the United States, 150,200 in Germany and 87,100 in Spain.

“As we watch events unfold in Gaza, Sudan and beyond, the prospect of peace and solutions for refugees and other displaced populations might feel distant,” said Grandi.

“But we cannot give up. With our partners we will keep pushing for—and finding—solutions for refugees.”

Some 3.1 million people did return home between January and June, including 2.7 million IDPs.

Myanmar Now News

Chin refugees request criminal investigation of Myanmar junta officials by Philippine authorities

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If the government proceeds with the investigation, the Philippines will be the first country in Asia to invoke universal jurisdiction to hold foreign nationals accountable for crimes against humanity

Displaced members of Myanmar’s Chin community have turned to courts in the Philippines to bring war crimes charges against Myanmar junta officials, according to a statement released by activists and the accusers’ attorneys on Wednesday.

With legal representation from Philippine attorneys and support from the activist organisation Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), five displaced residents of Chin State filed a criminal complaint with the Department of Justice in Manila, requesting an investigation into 10 regime officials, including junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. 

The complainants accuse the junta of murdering civilians, including their own relatives, as well as desecrating bodies, burning churches and houses, and withholding aid from people impacted by conflict or natural disasters. All five sought refuge abroad following assaults by junta forces that forced the entire surviving population of the town of Thantlang, Chin State to flee in 2021.

In the statement released on Wednesday, they allege that the military killed civilians when they tried to put out fires deliberately started by soldiers. 

“I will not accept that my nephew’s death was in vain. He died attempting to save fellow citizens from the raging fires. I beseech the authorities here in the Philippines to grant us the justice we pray for,” said one of the complainants, whose name was withheld for security reasons.  

A total of 528 ethnic Chin people have been killed in military atrocities since the coup, of whom 217 were civilians and the rest were resistance fighters, according to the advocacy group Institute of Chin Affairs.

Salai Ling, the deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organisation, is among the complainants and spoke on their behalf. 

“The atrocities of the regime forces against the Chin people and residents of Thantlang have put all of our lives upside down: Our losses are permanent and irreplaceable. The destruction of the whole town was painful to watch, the loss of our loved ones, our community, our churches, and all of our historical roots and lifetime of memories are indescribable,” Salai Ling told Myanmar Now on Wednesday.

“We are asking for justice because for far too long the Myanmar military has been allowed to commit war crimes and atrocity crimes with complete impunity,” he added.

When reached for comment, MAP executive director Chris Gunness noted the importance of involving Myanmar’s fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in holding the junta accountable.

“Various international mechanisms and bodies, such as the UN Security Council, have said repeatedly that ASEAN should be in the lead. The cases MAP is supporting in places like the Philippines and Indonesia puts ASEAN in the driving seat,” Gunness said. 

MAP has also requested that Indonesia’s human rights commission investigate state-owned companies that have allegedly supplied weapons to the Myanmar military, and has petitioned the constitutional court in Jakarta to proceed with a universal jurisdiction case.

“It allows survivors of gross violations to tell their stories and validate their narratives in their own home regions. And finally it promotes the concept of ‘no safe havens’ such that Min Aung Hlaing and his criminal clique will think twice before they swan around the region with their families, doing their shopping and dealing with their healthcare,” the MAP director added.

Romel Bagares and Gilbert Andres, the attorneys representing the Chin refugees, argue that a Philippine law enacted in 2009 allows authorities to try foreign nationals for crimes committed outside the country under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction. 

According to this principle, states have the right to prosecute certain egregious crimes—including crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and war crimes—regardless of where the crime occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims.

If the requested investigation proceeds in Manila, the government of the Philippines will be the first in any Asian country to invoke universal jurisdiction in investigating and prosecuting such crimes.

Spanish courts previously invoked universal jurisdiction in prosecuting an Argentine former naval officer for crimes against civilians during a military dictatorship in his native country. Germany also convicted foreign nationals under this principle for their involvement in genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Earlier this year, the human rights organisation Fortify Rights supported a criminal complaint against Myanmar military officials—also invoking universal jurisdiction—filed with authorities in Germany. 

Before supporting the case in the Philippines, MAP helped file a criminal complaint with the Turkish government in March of 2022, leading to an investigation of Myanmar junta officials accused of using torture.

Myanmar Now News

Newborns and women among 50 detained in southern Myanmar

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Junta troops arrested civilians after soldiers died in a nearby clash.

Myanmar troops arrested around 50 villagers in an act of retaliation, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. After a local People’s Defence Force attacked a junta outpost, soldiers captured women, children and entire families from a nearby village.

While the army has already released some detainees, others remain in custody in Tanintharyi, the country’s southern coastal region. Locals from Myeik township said soldiers captured them on Monday following a clash that allegedly left several junta soldiers dead.

The arrests are ongoing, a resident who did not want to be named for security reasons told RFA on Wednesday.

“They arrested all the villagers in Tone Byaw Gyi village. There are entire families, even mothers with newborn babies,” he said. “Some were released. Some are still being arrested.”

The militia group attacked the post in Tone Byaw Gyi last week, an official from the local People’s Defense Force said.

“We tried to seize the outpost, but we couldn’t because they laid many landmines around it,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. 

“We left the battle because we were out of arms and ammunition. Our side lost a drone in the battle.”

Junta forces are treating villagers harshly because of their heavy losses, he said, adding that 12 soldiers were killed and six were injured.

RFA has been unable to confirm these claims.

Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson Thant Zin did not respond to RFA’s request for comment by the time of publication. 

The junta outpost in Tone Byaw Gyi is the site of many ongoing clashes since the country’s 2021 coup, with local resistance groups bombing the outpost in July. 

Regime troops arrested over 3,200 people in Tanintharyi region between April 2022 and September 2023. Among them, 2,141 were released, according to the independent research group that goes only by the initials FEB Tanintharyi.

More than 25,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

RFA News