U.N. Investigators Find Myanmar Military Carried Out Deliberate Aerial Attacks on Civilians in 2025–26

UN-mandated investigators said Tuesday that Myanmar’s military carried out a sustained pattern of deliberate attacks on civilians, particularly from the air, striking homes, schools, medical facilities and camps for displaced people as they worked to identify the units and commanders responsible.

The finding comes from the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, a body created by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate the most serious international crimes and violations in Myanmar. In its annual report and a press release issued Aug. 11, the mechanism said its investigations covering July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, “show a pattern of deliberate aerial attacks on civilians.”

The mechanism said it documented aerial attacks “deliberately targeting civilian objects, including villages, schools, religious and cultural buildings, camps for internally displaced persons, and medical facilities.” It also reported other alleged abuses by the military, including artillery and drone attacks, arbitrary detention, torture including sexualized torture, sexual and gender-based crimes, killings in detention, and the burning or destruction of homes.

What is newly significant in the report is not only the description of abuse, but the progress toward attribution. The IIMM said it has identified some military units responsible for aerial attacks and is working to determine chains of command and the individuals responsible for issuing or ordering attacks. To support its findings, the mechanism said it drew on evidence from more than 1,600 sources, has collected and processed more than 28 million items of information and evidence, and has obtained 756 witness statements.

The investigations span multiple parts of Myanmar, including Chin, Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Rakhine and Shan states, as well as Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions. The report said violence intensified in Rakhine State during the reporting period. It also said attacks and other crimes escalated in the run-up to and during the military-managed elections that began Dec. 28, 2025, and continued into January 2026. Investigators said the military increasingly relied on paramotors and drones, making attacks harder for civilians to detect and evade.

The IIMM was established in 2018 to collect, preserve and analyze evidence of serious crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011 and to help prepare case files for future prosecutions. In Tuesday’s report, it said it has shared evidence and analysis with accountability bodies including the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar, and national authorities including in Argentina and the United Kingdom. It also said its material was widely referenced during public hearings at the ICJ in January 2026.

“Behind every piece of evidence we collect are people whose lives have been devastated by these crimes,” Nicholas Koumjian, the head of the IIMM, said in the press release. “Communities across Myanmar are not only living under the constant threat of violence but are also coping with the profound and lasting impact of what they have endured. This underscores the urgent need to hold those responsible to account.”

The report lands against a stark humanitarian backdrop. A U.N. humanitarian update published by OCHA on March 9, citing data from the U.N. human rights office, said at least 982 people were killed in airstrikes in 2025.