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Washington: Myanmar’s military has imported at least $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in arms and other material since it staged a coup in February 2021, a UN expert said in a new report that calls out Russia and China for aiding the junta’s deadly campaign to crush its opposition.
Since the military seized power and jailed democratic leaders, some opponents of military rule have taken up arms, in places joining ethnic minority insurgents, and the military has responded with air strikes and heavy weapons, including in civilian areas.
Russian-made Mi-35 helicopters, MiG-29 fighter jets and Yak-130 light aircraft, and Chinese K-8 jets, have been most frequently used to conduct air strikes that have hit schools, medical facilities, homes and other civilian sites, said the report by Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar.
In a single attack on a village gathering in the Sagaing region on April 11, two bombs dropped from a Yak-130 killed at least 160 people, including nearly 40 children, the report said.
The military says it is targeting insurgents, and said after the attack any civilians killed were probably supporters of opponents it calls “terrorists”.
“The good news is we now know who is supplying these arms and the jurisdictions in which they operate,” Andrews said in a statement, calling for UN members to “step up and stop the flow of arms”, with a complete ban on the arms transfers to Myanmar’s military, enforcement of existing bans and co-ordinated sanctions.
The UN expert used trade data to detail transfers of arms and other goods – including raw materials for Myanmar’s domestic arms production – to the military since the coup. He said the weapons were worth $610 million from Russia and $402 million from China, including from state-owned entities in both countries.
State-owned entities in India also made a smaller volume of transfers, and companies in Singapore, India and Thailand were also involved in transfers to the military.
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