The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed horror over an attack against a village in Myanmar, blamed on the ruling junta, that killed dozens of people on Tuesday.
"I am horrified by reports of today’s airstrikes by Myanmar fighter jets on a community hall in the Sagaing region, an opposition stronghold in the northwest of the country, that killed dozens of people, including women and children," Mr. Turk said in a statement.
“It appears schoolchildren performing dances, as well as other civilians, attending an opening ceremony at the hall in Pazi Gyi village, Kanbalu Township, were among the victims,” Mr. Turk said in a statement on Tuesday. A helicopter gunship then reportedly fired on those fleeing the hall. Media reported as many as 100 people may have been killed."
Witnesses contacted by French news agency AFP also reported around 100 dead. Videos circulating on social networks, whose authenticity AFP said it could not confirm, show bodies strewn among the ruins of houses.
Turk accused the Burmese military of once again ignoring “clear legal obligations … to protect civilians in the conduct of hostilities” and showing “blatant disregard for the related rules of international law.”
Myanmar has been plunged into chaos since the military seized power in a coup two years ago.
The region of Sagaing, near Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, is fiercely resisting the junta, and intense fighting has been going on there for months.
Turk said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the military and its affiliated militias are responsible for an extremely broad range of human rights violations and abuses since 1 February 2021.”
