UN Rights Chief Calls for Referral of Situation in Myanmar to ICC
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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday called on UN member states to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court through the Security Council. He made the call while addressing the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
He stressed that the human rights crisis in Myanmar was “a matter of the greatest international concern,” and that its devastating impacts on the region “are clearer by the day.”
He also urged an end to the transfer of military-related and dual-use items to the Myanmar regime, which he said clearly risked faci
litating “violations of international rights and humanitarian law.”
The UN rights chief said “systematic human rights violations and abuses” had been committed against the Rohingya community by both the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, and that repatriating refugees to Myanmar at a time of insecurity amounted to “a flagrant violation of the non-refoulement principle.”
In February 2025, an Argentinian court issued arrest warrants for 25 senior Myanmar military and civilian officials, including regime boss Min Aung Hlaing, for genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya community.
Human rights violations in Myanmar have been worsening since the 2021 coup, as the regime steps up a brutal crackdown on anti-regime dissent and intensifies its military offensives nationwide to recapture vast areas of territory lost to resistance groups and ethnic armed organizations.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 8,300 people have been killed by the regime, while more than half of the 31,887 people arrested since the coup remain in detention.
Meanwhile, the now-dissolved Human Rights Ministry of the National Unity Government documented more than 14,000 regime aerial attacks across Myanmar from the coup through August this year, killing over 6,000 civilians. Community infrastructure such as schools, religious buildings and healthcare centres was often targeted.
“We have also observed an increase in ‘double tap’ strikes, where a second attack hits first responders and those helping the wounded,” Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), said at the UN Human Rights Council session.
He reiterated that the Myanmar regime’s increasing reliance on aerial attacks, in which civilians are “the principal victims,” and greater use of paramotors and drones, are making it harder for civilians to detect raids and to seek shelter in time.
On Monday evening, at least seven villagers were killed in Ye-U Township of Sagaing Region when three regime gyrocopters and a fighter jet bombed a village in the absence of any ground clashes.
On August 21, 15 villagers, most of them elderly, were killed in a regime airstrike on a religious site in Sagaing’s Myaung Township during a meditation retreat.
“Unfortunately, the situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate,” said the IIMM head. “Serious international crimes are being committed with greater frequency and intensity.”
Due to the post-coup turmoil, more than 4 million people were displaced internally by the nationwide conflict between the regime and resistance forces as of August 10, according to the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency.
A total of 12.4 million people face acute hunger, including 1 million facing emergency levels of hunger and requiring life-saving assistance, according to the UN World Food Program.
Established in 2018 and mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, the IIMM has collected evidence of crimes from more than 1,600 sources, including media footage and 750 witness testimonies, and shared it with authorities pursuing justice for victims, including Rohingya, and accountability for perpetrators.
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