UN slams Myanmar's ruling military for breaching truce amid quake recovery
The United Nations rights office has denounced Myanmar's governing military for breaching the temporary truce in the civil war that was declared by warring sides last month following a deadly earthquake.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Friday that the military attacks on armed resistance groups come when 'the sole focus should be on ensuring humanitarian aid gets to disaster zones.'
The ceasefire declared after the March 28 earthquake that killed more than 3,600 people in Myanmar was supposed to last until April 22.
A multi-sided conflict has engulfed Myanmar since 2021, when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing's military declared a coup and wrested power from the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng had previously reported that many earthquake survivors suffer as the military government has blocked aid to rebel-held areas.
Since the earthquake struck, Shamdasani said 'military forces have reportedly carried out over 120 attacks.
'More than half of them (were) after their declared ceasefire was due to have gone into effect on 2 April,' she added.
UN rights chief Volker Turk, she said, 'calls on the military to remove any and all obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian assistance and to cease military operations'.
The UN rights office had determined that most of these involved aerial and artillery strikes, according to Shamdasani, 'including in areas impacted by the earthquake'.
'Numerous strikes have been reported in populated areas, many of them appearing to amount to indiscriminate attacks and to breach the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law.'
Shamdasani pointed out that areas at the epicentre of the quake in Sagaing, particularly those controlled by opponents of the military, 'have had to rely on local community responses for search and rescue, and to meet basic needs'.
Amid the devastation, Shamdasani has urged the military to announce a full amnesty for detainees it has imprisoned since February 2021, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint.
Amid the criticism of the military government, China announced an emergency humanitarian assistance of 1 billion yuan ($137m) to provide urgently needed food, medicines and prefabricated homes.
China, which backs the military government, has also sent more than 30 rescue teams to Myanmar after the earthquake and provided about 1.5 million yuan ($205,000) in cash through the Chinese Red Cross.
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