UN report finds 5,350 civilians have been killed by the military since the coup in February 2021.

Myanmar’s military regime has stepped up killings and arrests in an apparent bid to silence opponents with tens of thousands of people arrested since the coup more than three years ago, a United Nations report has found.

The military seized power in February 2021, removing the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering nationwide street protests that it violently crushed.

The protest movement has since turned into a widening armed rebellion, and fighting is continuing on multiple fronts. The military introduced conscription in February to try and boost its ranks.

On Tuesday, a report issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, said 5,350 civilians had been killed by the military since the coup. The report was based partly on remote interviews with hundreds of victims and witnesses because investigators were denied access to the country.

Of those deaths, 2,414 people died in the latest reporting period from April 2023 to June 2024, an increase of 50 percent compared with the previous reporting period. Hundreds were killed in air and artillery attacks.

“Myanmar is plumbing the depths of the human rights abyss,” said James Rodehaver, head of the UN rights office’s Myanmar team.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Rodehaver noted: “Myanmar’s military has created the crisis by instrumentalising the legal system, criminalising nearly all forms of dissent against its attempts to rule the country.”

The UN report also revealed that nearly 27,400 people have been arrested since the coup and are thought to be in military training centres.

Among those seized by authorities are children who were taken when their parents could not be located “as a form of punishment for political opposition”, the report said.

UN rights office spokesperson Liz Throssell told a news conference that at least 1,853 people had also died in custody since the coup, including 88 children.

“Many of these individuals have been verified as dying after being subjected to abusive interrogation, other ill-treatment in detention or denial of access to adequate healthcare,” she said.

Rodehaver added: “Detainees interviewed by our office describe methods such as being suspended from the ceiling without food or water, being forced to kneel or crawl on hard or sharp objects, the introduction of animals such as snakes or insects or other wild animals in order to provoke fear and terror in individuals.”

Others, he said, described beatings with iron poles, bamboo sticks, batons, rifle butts, leather strips, electric wires and motorcycle chains.

Myanmar’s military has not responded to the UN report.

Latest figures from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights group monitoring the post-coup crackdown, says it has verified at least 5,665 civilian deaths since the coup. It is in the process of confirming a further 2,500 deaths.

Turk repeated a recommendation that the rights violations in Myanmar be referred to the International Criminal Court.

The country is under investigation for genocide at the International Court of Justice over a brutal 2017 crackdown on the minority Rohingya.