In its annual report launched on Tuesday, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) mentioned it had made “essential progress” documenting crimes and figuring out these accountable, together with commanders of safety forces overseeing detention amenities.
Myanmar descended into civil struggle following the military coup of February 2021 and the detention of civilian leaders, together with President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The takeover sparked mass protests, a violent crackdown on dissent and a nationwide armed resistance motion.
‘Vital proof’
The crimes detailed in Tuesday’s report embrace burning of sexual physique elements, different types of sexual violence and abstract executions of captured combatants or civilians accused of being informers.
“We’ve got uncovered vital proof, together with eyewitness testimony, exhibiting systematic torture in Myanmar detention amenities,” said Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Mechanism.
“We’ve got made headway in figuring out the perpetrators, together with the commanders who oversee these amenities and we stand able to help any jurisdictions prepared and capable of prosecute these crimes.”
Command accountability
The report covers the interval from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 and attracts on greater than 1,300 sources, together with almost 600 eyewitness testimonies, images, movies, paperwork, maps and forensic proof.
It additionally particulars intensified investigations into aerial assaults on colleges, properties and hospitals – together with incidents in the days following the March 2025 earthquake, when rescue operations have been nonetheless underway.
The UN Human Rights Council-mandated investigators are analysing the composition of the Myanmar Air Pressure and its chain of command to determine these accountable for such strikes.
New investigations have additionally been opened into atrocities in Rakhine state, the place the navy and the ethnic armed group Arakan Military are battling for management, alongside ongoing probes into crimes dedicated towards the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017.
Worldwide accountability
Proof collected by investigators has already supported proceedings earlier than the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and in Argentina.
It contributed to the ICC Prosecutor’s November 2024 request for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s navy chief and to the Argentine Federal Court docket’s February 2025 warrants towards him and 24 others.
“Our report highlights a continued improve within the frequency and brutality of atrocities dedicated in Myanmar,” Mr. Koumjian mentioned.
“We’re working in direction of the day when the perpetrators must reply for his or her actions in a courtroom of legislation.”
Spiralling disaster
Combating between the navy, pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed teams has displaced tens of millions and pushed the nation into deep political, financial and humanitarian turmoil.
The nation additionally faces the long-running penalties of the 2017 navy operations towards the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state.
These campaigns – described by the then UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’advert Al Hussein as “a textbook instance of ethnic cleaning” – pressured a whole lot of hundreds of Rohingya to flee throughout the border into Bangladesh, the place most stay in crowded refugee camps.
A number of pressures
Investigators warn their work is being undermined by the UN’s liquidity disaster, which have reduce the mechanism’s 2025 finances to simply 73 per cent of the accepted quantity and would require a 20 per cent discount in common budget-funded workers in 2026.
To deal with useful resource constraints and operational challenges – together with lack of direct entry to witnesses in Myanmar, safety dangers and cybersecurity threats – the investigation crew has adopted a three-year Strategic Plan, specializing in strengthening operational resilience and enhancing capability.
