Source: United Nations (Video News)
Press conference by Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar on the situation in Myanmar.
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“Very, very regrettably, the frequency and the brutality of crimes in Myanmar has only increased in the past year,” Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, said.
Koumjian spoke to reporters today (31 Oct) in New York, highlighting the concern of the increase in aerial attacks, “which are impacting largely the civilian population and creating terror among the population.”
“The number of casualties that have been affected by these attacks has increased,” he added.
The head of the Investigative Mechanism also stressed the systematic use of torture in detention, “the evidence that we have gathered has indicated that detention that torture is used frequently, regularly, and particularly note the very disturbing use of sexual violence and against those who are detained, and that includes against both women and men, people of all genders, of all sexual preferences and people, including against both adults and minors,” he said.
Moving on to the situation for the Rohingyas refugees, Koumjian said, “they’ve been both victims of collateral damage and directly targeted in attacks.”
He went on saying, “Frequently they’ve been told to leave their homes, but there really is nowhere for them to go. They cannot cross the border, although some have managed to cross the border into Bangladesh, and Bangladesh has accepted some the borders generally closed. People have to pay bribes to get across into the safety of the refugee camps.”
The head of the Investigative Mechanism also expressed concerns that much of the evidence shows attacks against the civilian population by the Myanmar military.
He said, “We’ve seen increasing evidence of very brutal crimes committed by opposition forces, and we’re concerned with that, and we want the message to go out. Our mandate is to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes committed by in Myanmar, and that’s regardless of the ethnicity, religion, political persuasions of either the perpetrators or the victims.”
“We will collect evidence of crimes committed by opposition forces also if those rise to the level that they fall within our mandate,” the head of the Investigative Mechanism concluded.
Koumjian is the first Head of the Myanmar Mechanism, which was established by the Human Rights Council on 27 September 2018, and welcomed by the General Assembly on 22 December 2018.