UN decries beheadings, other violence in Myanmar

GENEVA

The U.N. human rights office warned on May 24 of “frightening and disturbing reports” about the impact of new violence in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, pointing to new attacks on Rohingya civilians by the military and an ethnic armed group fighting it.

Spokesperson Liz Throssell of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights cited the burning of the town of Buthidaung, as well as air strikes, reports of shootings at unarmed fleeing villagers, beheadings and disappearances as part of the violence in recent weeks.

“We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports from northern Rakhine state in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on civilian lives and property," she told a regular briefing in Geneva.

“Some of the most serious allegations concern incidents of killing of Rohingya civilians and the burning of their property.”

She said tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days amid fighting in Buthidaung.

Throssell denounced signs of new attacks on Rohingya civilians by Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army, the well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement that seeks autonomy from the central government.

The fighting comes in the context of a civil war in Myanmar that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to an armed resistance opposing military rule.

The pro-democracy fighters are allied with several of the ethnic minority groups that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades, and have well-trained military forces.