Top Asian News 11:08 p.m. GMT
UN expert: Myanmar's desperate military ramps up attacks including beheadings, rapes and torture
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Myanmar’s desperate military junta is ramping up attacks on villages that have fallen to opposition groups, carrying out beheadings, gang rapes and torture, with women, children and the elderly among the victims, the U.N. independent human rights investigator for Myanmar said in a new report. Thomas Andrews, a former U.S. congressman from Maine, said in the report to the U.N. General Assembly circulated Friday that the junta has responded to military defeats and the loss of territory by using sophisticated weapons against civilians and seeking to destroy towns that it cannot control. Calling Myanmar “an invisible crisis” because the world's attention is focused elsewhere, he said, “Escalating atrocities against the people of Myanmar are being enabled by governments that allow, or actively support, the transfer of weapons, weapons materials, and jet fuel to junta forces.” Andrews didn’t name the governments.
