Myanmar's military killed at least 702 civilians in the six months between August 2024 and January 2025, according to a new report from the United Nations Human Rights Office. The verified deaths included 224 women and 153 children, and the report warns that a sharp decline in international aid is deepening the suffering of millions of people already caught in a brutal civil war.
Air strikes were the single largest cause of civilian deaths, accounting for at least 476 of the fatalities. The Sagaing region — a central area of Myanmar long contested between the military and armed resistance groups — was identified as the most dangerous for civilians, with 191 deaths recorded there alone. The report documents a series of deadly attacks, including an October strike on a Buddhist Lent celebration outside a school in Chaung-U, Sagaing, which killed 23 people including four children and wounded more than 60 others. In December, a military aircraft bombed a tea shop in Tabayin, also in Sagaing, where people had gathered to watch a football match, killing at least 19 and wounding 20 more.
The six-month period covered by the report coincides with elections announced and conducted by the military junta — a process widely condemned as neither free nor fair. Major opposition parties were excluded from standing, large parts of the country were unable to participate due to the ongoing conflict, and the military's own political party, the USDP, won nearly 80% of civilian parliamentary seats. In April 2025, Min Aung Hlaing — the general who led the 2021 coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi — was formally appointed president. Suu Kyi remains imprisoned under house arrest.
The report also highlights serious abuses against the Rohingya minority, including forced recruitment by the Arakan Army, as well as killings, arbitrary arrests and sexual violence. Meanwhile, cuts to international humanitarian funding have gutted localised protection programmes, reducing or eliminating support for displaced people, education initiatives and psychosocial assistance.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk issued a stark warning about the international community's response. "As if the people of Myanmar have not suffered enough at the hands of the military, they have now seemingly been forgotten by those outside the country," he said, calling on the international community to reflect on whether it would once again abandon the people of Myanmar after more than a decade of suffering. Since the 2021 coup, thousands have been killed and millions displaced, with large swathes of the country still controlled by armed opposition groups — though the military has reasserted pressure in recent months through forced conscription and expanded drone warfare.