Myanmar unsafe for children among coup and a global pandemic

UN rights experts have found credible information that among political turmoil Myanmar and a global COVID-19 Pandemic dozens of youngsters are killed, and hundreds arbitrarily detained since the coup, which deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, started five months ago. The UN child rights committee also reported on Friday that it has received proof that 75 children had been killed and approximately 1,000 arrested since February 1.

Myanmar’s residents took to the streets for mass protests, but the military are responding with brutality against the citizens.

“Children in Myanmar are under siege and facing the catastrophic loss of life because of the military coup. Children are exposed to indiscriminate violence, random shootings, and arbitrary arrests every day, They have guns pointed at them and see the same happen to their parents and siblings.” committee chair Mikiko Otani said during a statement.

The committee is formed from 18 independent experts who are tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Myanmar signed onto in 1991.

The experts said they strongly condemned the killing of children by the junta and police, remarking that “some victims were killed in their own homes”, including a six-year-old girl within the city of Mandalay, shot in the stomach by police, the statement said. Experts also condemned the widespread arbitrary detention of youngsters in police stations, prisons, and military detention centers taking children as ‘hostages once they are unable to arrest their parents, including a five-year-old girl in the Mandalay region whose father helped organize anti-military protests.

On Friday, Myanmar Now news website also reported that two minors, aged 12 and 15 were among seven villagers from Mandalay region’s Sintgaing township, who were detained and charged with possession of explosives.

The expert community also voiced deep concern about the considerable disruptions in essential medical aid and faculty education across the country as well as the disruption of access to safe beverages and food for youngsters in rural areas.

They acknowledged that the UN rights office had received credible reports that security forces were occupying and damaging hospitals, schools, and non-secular institutions within the country, in military actions. They highlighted numbers from the UN children’s agency UNICEF indicating that a million children across Myanmar were missing out on key vaccines, faced with severe acute malnutrition, 40,000 children were not receiving treatment.

“If this crisis continues, an entire generation of children is at risk of suffering profound physical, psychological, emotional, educational and economic consequences, depriving them of a healthy and productive future,” Otani warned.

As of Friday, the human rights monitor the help Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) in Myanmar reported that since the coup in February, a minimum of 912 people are killed, 6,770 are arrested and 5,277 currently detained or sentenced while 1,963 are wanted by security forces.

Meanwhile, Myanmar media are reporting that Win Htein, a revered senior leader of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), has been charged by the military government with sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The 79-year-old leader, who has been in detention within the capital, Naypyidaw, since February, pleaded acquitted to the charge, his lawyer was quoted as saying by Myanmar Now news website.

The crackdown, against the backdrop of an emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the country’s healthcare system, hospitals are reportedly running out of oxygen supplies and other people are single-handedly trying to save lots of their relations from succumbing to the disease. There have also been reports of coffins being sold out thanks to the surge in COVID-19 deaths.

According to reports, quite 200,000 people are infected with COVID-19 within the country, with quite 4,300 deaths, although doctors say that real numbers might be much higher.