The children were sleeping when death came from the air. A military warplane dropped two 500lb (230kg) bombs on their boarding school, witnesses said. Imagine, if you can, the carnage and the horror. At least 18 died. Others suffered life-changing injuries. The ruling regime claims to be fighting terrorists. Yet more often than not, it is defenceless, blameless civilians who are killed, maimed and displaced. No, this isn’t Gaza. It isn’t Ukraine. It’s Myanmar, where appalling atrocities, including crimes against humanity, often go unreported and unpunished. That doesn’t render them any less heinous or less deserving of universal condemnation.
Myanmar, formerly British-run colonial Burma, where civil war has raged since an army coup overthrew the elected government in 2021, is a microcosm of today’s fractured world. National leaders gathering at the UN general assembly this week face numerous daunting problems: among them, the authoritarian assault on democracy; record levels of conflict; pervasive flouting of human rights; impunity in the committing of genocide and war crimes; humanitarian emergencies exacerbated by foreign aid cuts; rising poverty; and environmentally damaging exploitation of less-developed countries’ natural resources.
