Myanmar crisis deepens, UN envoy warns of ‘catastrophic toll’

A Kachin refugee woman with children stands outside huts at the Hpun Lum Yang camp for displaced poeple near Laiza in northern Myanmar in 2013 [File: Yadana Htun/AP]

United Nations special envoy Noeleen Heyzer has condemned an air raid by Myanmar’s military in northern Kachin state that killed as many as 80 people, as she warned that a human rights and humanitarian crisis in the military-ruled country is exacting “a catastrophic toll on the people”.

Heyzer told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday that more than 13.2 million people do not have enough to eat in Myanmar, 1.3 million are displaced, and the military continues to bomb indiscriminately, burn homes and buildings, and kill civilians.