The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned today that the situation in Myanmar threatens to turn into a Syrian-style “all-out conflict.
The country is in chaos and the economy is paralyzed after the Burmese military seized power in a coup on Feb. 1 and arrested civilian government leader Aung San Suu Kyi. At least 710 people, including 50 children, have been killed in the military’s two-month crackdown on demonstrations, according to Burma watchdog groups as of last night.
Basherai warned today that the Myanmar military’s actions could constitute a crime against humanity, and she urged countries to take immediate action to pressure the military to stop “repressing and killing people.
I fear the situation in Burma could be heading toward full-scale conflict,” Bashelet said in a statement.
She warned that the situation in Burma is clearly similar to what happened in Syria in 2011. Syria’s civil war over the past 10 years has claimed nearly 400,000 lives and forced more than 6 million people to flee their homeland.
Myanmar’s multi-ethnic resistance groups have stepped up attacks on the military and police in recent weeks in some of the border’s triple-regulation zones, raising suspicions of civil war along the border.
The military has retaliated with airstrikes that the Free Burma Rangers, a Christian aid group working there, said killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 40. By the 10th, more than 24,000 civilians had been displaced in Karen State.
AFP has not been able to independently confirm the deaths and injuries due to the remote location and the difficulty of contact.
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