The Myanmar military has escalated its aerial attacks against civilians, with the conflict ravaging the country showing no signs of abating, UN investigators said yesterday.

The military stepped up such attacks and other crimes against civilians in the lead-up to the elections completed in January, and these strikes have since “continued unabated”, the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said.

The deeply restricted polls held by the ruling military junta delivered a walkover win for its allies in civilian politics. The IIMM’s annual report, covering July 2025 to June 2026, documented a pattern of deliberate aerial attacks on civilians, arbitrary detentions, torture and sexual violence committed by the Myanmar military.

“The frequency and intensity of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military and by various armed groups continued to escalate,” it said.

Myanmar’s ruling junta seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021 that ousted Suu Kyi’s elected government, ending a 10-year experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into bloody turmoil and a humanitarian crisis.