Myanmar crisis: Human Rights Council probe

Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) press conference - 11 August 2026

20:29

MP4

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11-08-2026

Edited News , Press Conferences | HRC

Myanmar crisis: Human Rights Council probe

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Shotlist Story

Myanmar crisis: Human Rights Council probe

TRT: 2’44”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 11 AUGUST 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Speaker:

Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM)

SHOTLIST

Exterior wide, UN Geneva flag alley.
Wide, UN Geneva Press room, podium speakers.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “One of the areas that we're concentrating on is, because of the suffering that's happening in Myanmar, are the airstrikes that are occurring. We note in particular there are many airstrikes targeting, hitting, schools; children are often the victims of these airstrikes and also hospitals.”
Medium, podium speakers.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “We rely very much on brave individuals who are willing to talk to us and share their testimonies. We’ve collected information from over 1,600 sources. We try to make every effort to keep our interactions as safe as possible. But we know that these individuals are taking risks.”
Wide, podium speakers, journalists, participants in Press Room.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “This is a very difficult process to try to collect evidence and hope for criminal prosecutions around the world for crimes in a country that's in the midst of a very serious civil conflict. But we think it's still very important that victims know someone is collecting evidence. Someday, there may be justice for what has happened to them and also that potential perpetrators know, again, someone is watching.”
Wide, journalists, participants.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “The allegation is that the military bombed detention facilities where some of its own soldiers and their families were present and we’re collecting evidence to determine the truth of that.”
Wide, journalists, participants.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “In regards to the airstrikes, of course, if it is an airplane, it's the military; the military is the only force that has airplanes in Myanmar. But you're also correct, of course, that some opposition have used drones.”
Medium-wide, podium speakers, journalists, participants.
SOUNDBITE (English) – Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM: “We've also reached out to other armed groups about allegations of crimes that we've seen or videos we've seen posted online that show things like executions of soldiers. We haven't been - they haven't been - as cooperative with us in providing information. And of course, we've reached out multiple times, dozens of times, to the Myanmar military, seeking information from them, and they have never cooperated with us.”
Wide, Press Room, TV screen showing speaker, control booth.
Medium, journalists.
Medium, journalist, participants.

Myanmar's military has carried out a sustained campaign of deliberate attacks on civilians – including airstrikes on homes, schools and camps for displaced people, alongside arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence – Human Rights Council-appointed investigators said on Tuesday.

Why the Myanmar crisis matters

Civilians under fire: airstrikes on homes, schools, hospitals.
Abuses continue: torture, arbitrary detention and sexual violence documented.
Evidence preserved: information from more than 1,600 sources gathered to support prosecutions.

The findings come in the annual report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), covering July 2025 to June 2026, published Tuesday.

"One of the areas that we're concentrating on is, because of the suffering that's happening in Myanmar, are the airstrikes [against communities] that are occurring...We're looking at the command structure and how the orders would be given for such airstrikes," said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Mechanism.

"In particular there are many airstrikes targeting, hitting schools. Children are often the victims of these airstrikes and also hospitals. So our team is collecting that evidence of where it has occurred, the kind of munitions that are used."

Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict since the military seized power in February 2021, overthrowing the civilian government and arresting top leaders including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.

The coup also triggered nationwide protests and subsequent armed resistance movements which control large swathes of the fractured country.

Relentless attacks

Attacks intensified in the run-up to elections completed in January and have not let up since, the report found.

Investigators traced strikes on homes, schools, medical facilities, religious buildings and displacement camps, and identified some of the military units responsible.

They also found the military's growing use of motorised power gliders and drones has made attacks harder for civilians to see coming, cutting the time people have to flee or find shelter.

Lives devastated

“Behind every piece of evidence we collect are people whose lives have been devastated by these crimes,” said Mr. Koumjian.

“Communities across Myanmar are not only living under the constant threat of violence but are also coping with the profound and lasting impact of what they have endured.”

Investigators also documented widespread torture and sexual violence in military-run detention facilities, including cases tied to a 2025 law that criminalizes criticism of the elections – under which people have been jailed for up to 20 years, or face the death penalty, for acts as minor as posting critical comments online.

While most of the evidence concerns the military and allied militias, the Mechanism said it is also investigating abuses by armed groups opposed to the military.

The findings draw on more than 1,600 sources, including over 750 witness accounts, along with photographs, video, forensic evidence and satellite imagery.

What is the IIMM?

The mechanism was set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and preserve evidence of the gravest crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011, for use in future prosecutions.

It doesn't prosecute cases itself but shares its evidence with courts and authorities that do.

These include the International Criminal Court and courts in Argentina pursuing cases over crimes against the Rohingya, and the International Court of Justice, which is weighing whether Myanmar breached the Genocide Convention during the 2016–2017 crackdown on ethnic Rohingya communities.

In 2017, then UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein condemned the Myanmar military's persecution of the Rohingya who fled in their hundreds of thousands to neighbouring Bangladesh. "The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” Zeid told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Teleprompter

Very good morning and thank you for joining us here at the UN office at Geneva for this prequel to our regular briefing.

Very pleased to welcome Mr Nicholas Kumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, otherwise known as the IIMM, which you know, was established by the Human Rights Council back in 2018.

Mr Kumjian has been in his role since 2019.

He's going to brief you on their latest annual report, which I understand is just been published.

You should have received it earlier.

So without further ado, over to you, Nicholas.

Thank you very much.

Well, thank you very much for your interest in Myanmar, often called a forgotten conflict.

But so it's very important that you have keep this situation in the news and it's a matter obviously of concern should be to the international community.

Our mechanism was established by the Council with the mandate to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011 and analyse that in order to facilitate criminal prosecutions in national or international courts.

When we were created, it was largely in response to the Rohingya crisis and the long history of civilians suffering in the conflicts in Myanmar.

But what wasn't anticipated at the time was the 2021 coup, which has led to a great, great increase in violence in the suffering of civilians in Myanmar.

So our work is concentrated on these two different particular main aspects, What has happened to the Rohingya since in 2012, 2016, 2017, an ongoing conflict in Rakhine State and also the violence related to the post coup situation and the conflict between various armed forces opposed to the military junta and the military forces.

One of the areas that we're concentrating on is because of the suffering that's happening in Myanmar are the air strikes that are occurring.

And we note in particular there are many air strikes targeting hitting schools.

Children are often the victims of these air strikes and also hospitals.

So our team is collecting that evidence of where it has occurred, the kind of munitions that are used.

We're looking at the command structure and how the orders would be given for such air strikes.

We're also very concerned, of course, with crimes and detention.

10s of thousands have been arrested since the coup in detention.

We have collected testimonies of individuals who talk about torture, seeing it or themselves being the victims of it, and sexual violence in detention.

And that's another area where we're collecting evidence in order to share it with courts that may have the ability and the willingness to exercise jurisdiction over those offences.

We rely very much on brave individuals who are willing to talk to us and share their testimonies.

We've collected information from over 1600 sources.

We try to make every effort to keep our interactions as safe as possible.

But we know that these individuals are taking risks to speak to us, and we're very grateful to them for their willingness to do so.

[Other language spoken]

So we depend upon courts, judicial authorities taking interest in our case and having the willingness to prosecute the cases.

So far we're sharing evidence with three distinct entities, the International Criminal Court, which has an investigation about the Rohingya in in 2017 and earlier violence against the Rohingya.

We know that back in November of 2024, the ICC prosecutor announced a request.

He was requesting an arrest warrant from Menon.

And we're also sharing evidence with the federal prosecutor's office in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, which has responded to a complaint filed by Rohingya victims living in the UK and in Bangladesh with no connection to Argentina.

But the Argentine courts have said because the allegations are crimes against humanity, it means just that.

And under the Argentine Constitution, they said there's an obligation to investigate.

So we've shared our evidence with the federal prosecutor's office in order to enable them to conduct an investigation.

And then finally, we shared a great amount of evidence in our analysis with the parties at the International Court of Justice.

[Other language spoken]

It's not a criminal case, a civil case where the Gambia and has alleged that as a signatory to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide that Myanmar, another signatory, has violated its obligations.

You all know that in January, the court held hearings where it discussed the evidence.

There was quite a lot of discussion about evidence that we an analysis that we had provided to the court and it's been reported that the court is hoping to issue a decision on the case this year.

We continue to look for other opportunities to share our evidence, including looking at who is.

Is there a possibility that those that are providing the means for crimes from outside Myanmar could be in violation of national laws such as sanctions or possibly money laundering by providing weapons and materials that are fueling the conflict?

So we've been in discussions with national authorities in several jurisdictions at an early stage about potential investigations in those countries.

With that, I'll open it up for questions from you.

Thank you again for your interest.

Thanks to you, Mr Kumjian.

[Other language spoken]

We'll take one online from Antonio of the Spanish News Agency.

Antonio, thank you.

[Other language spoken]

So my question is on the process that are that you mentioned and that Jamaica is is helping and what are your hopes for, for this these three processes?

Do you think that a change of regime in Myanmar is necessary for them to to make progress?

And also do you think it would be better to bring them together into a single process?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for the question.

Well, the processes are quite distinct and I don't think it would be possible to bring them together.

So the International Criminal Court and the Argentine Argentine investigation involve individual criminal responsibility.

They look at whether individuals have contributed to a crime under international law, while the International Court of Justice is looking at, has the state of Myanmar violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

I think that all these processes are important even at this stage, even if there is obviously going to be, if there was indictments, there's obviously an issue about how do you make arrests.

But it's very important, I think, these processes to keeping the matter before the public, before the international community, reminding people about what has happened, reminding other potential perpetrators the conflict is still going on, that someone is watching, that those who commit such crimes could be held to account.

And, you know, we've often had this debate about whether having criminal investigations under international law is conducive to peace or not.

And in many other contexts where initially people thought, well, no one will ever be arrested, it it complicates the process.

It's turned out not to have been an impediment to peace negotiations.

So Charles Taylor was indicted when he was president of Liberia and involved in peace negotiations.

Eventually he resigned and was eventually brought to justice.

Some years later, the the Khmer Rouge were in the process of surrendering.

The court was created to try those most responsible for Khmer Rouge crimes.

So I think there are many other instances also where International Criminal justice, I think, has contributed, has not impeded peace processes and I think arguably has contributed to the ability of victims to see some measure of justice for what's happened to them.

[Other language spoken]

And also for providing that important context.

OK, we'll take a question up from Nick, New York Times.

Yeah, thank you for the briefing.

Could you just dig in a little bit more into the kind of criminal liability of states that are assisting the Commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity?

Are we talking purely about arms supplies?

Are we talking about the kind of trade and investment that is flourishing with some of its ASEAN neighbours?

Are you aware of any particular prosecutions that can be really developed by IVICC or other bodies that that look into that?

The secondly, I wonder also if I know that your main concern is with the hostilities that are going on in Myanmar, but do you also look at the scam centres and are you coming across anything that sheds light on abuses linked to to those businesses and those who are leading that process?

[Other language spoken]

Thanks very much for the question.

Well, to be clear, we're not looking at state responsibility for supplying weapons.

We're looking at whether there's a potential criminal prosecutions in these States and in these states so far it's individuals and in very few states it may be possible to prosecute a corporation.

But generally criminal prosecutions are limited to individuals.

So we'd be looking at whether individuals who may be part of the corporation or business have provided the means for the crimes and it and, and it's possible to hold them responsible under aiding and abetting under International Criminal law.

If they, you can show that they knew that they're, they were making a contribution to the crimes and still continued that.

But that's, to be honest, that is very difficult to prove.

What may be easier is to show violations of national laws about sanctions, about what kind of material is allowed to be provided to the state in question.

So those are the kinds of matters that we're examining and looking at along with a few national jurisdictions, judicial officials in national jurisdictions.

In regards to your second question about the scam centres, thank you very much for that.

I mean, obviously I think the special rapporteur for human rights, no, sorry, the special envoy of the Secretary general said last year that I think that scam centres in and Myanmar is now the world's number one source of international crimes, drug dealing and scam centres.

And the scam centres are obviously of great concern, but for it to fall within our jurisdiction, we need to find evidence that these scam centres are contributing to international crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes.

So we're certainly looking to see if we if that evidence exists, but I would not say right now that we're examining the scam centres.

[Other language spoken]

Olivia, thanks very much for this briefing.

[Other language spoken]

I do appreciate the report overwhelmingly focuses on the military government, but I did also note the report mentions abuses by members of the People's Defence Forces and other non state armed groups.

I was just wondering when it comes to the the PDF, if you have any kind of further details on that, exactly which groups are are alleged to be involved in some of those abuses?

Just conscious that's quite a broad term and actually a very practical level when we seek comment it's it was a bit vague perhaps.

So just wondering if you can maybe detail a bit a bit more what you found and he believed to be responsible as part of those groups?

We've collected evidence about allegations of serious crimes from a number of different groups, and that includes PDFs or other groups opposed to the military regime that are in battling the military regime.

[Other language spoken]

It's very difficult sometimes to describe the chain of command or the exact characterization of what is APDF as opposed to an allied or just another opposition group.

But we have, for example, also reached out to the national unity government about one crime that we knew that they had investigated.

We asked them to share their investigation with us, and they did so, which we're very grateful for that kind of cooperation.

We've also reached out to other armed groups about allegations of crimes that we've seen or videos we've seen posted online that show things like executions of soldiers.

And we haven't been, they haven't been as cooperative with us in providing information.

And of course, we've reached out multiple times, dozens of times to the Myanmar military seeking information from them and they have never cooperated with us.

Well noted.

[Other language spoken]

OK, we'll go back to you, Antonio Spanish Shoes Agency.

[Other language spoken]

Regarding the airstrikes, I would like to know if all the all these attacks denounced in the report come from the junta, from the from the army?

Or given that drones and paramotors are also used, that also some other armed groups have the ability to to conduct them.

And also in one paragraph report says that there is attacks against detention facilities under the control of of opposition armed groups.

It doesn't mean that the the Hyundai is and, and, and these attacks are killing Myanmar soldiers.

So so doesn't mean that the the Hyundai is killing its own soldiers with some of these attacks.

[Other language spoken]

That is an allegation that we're investigating.

That's correct.

The allegation is that the military bombed detention facilities where some of its own soldiers and their families were present, and we're collecting evidence to determine the truth of that in regards to the air strikes.

Of course, if it is an aeroplane, it's the military.

The military is the only force that has aeroplanes in Myanmar.

But you're also correct, of course, that some opposition have used drones.

There's one strike in particular, drone strike where we're looking where there are allegations that it was an armed group that was responsible for the attack and we're collecting evidence in order to examine those allegations.

[Other language spoken]

Robin, AFP, thank you for giving me if if you've already gone over this, but these new methods of attack that you're that you're documenting in your report, drone strikes, paraglides, etcetera, where are they getting these drones from?

What is what is the source of of this new material which is playing a factor in the in the conflict?

[Other language spoken]

That is one of the areas that we hope to examine where material is coming from.

So you know, it depends upon the sophistication of the drone, I think where the materials are coming from, but we're looking into that.

I really don't have an answer to your question right now.

[Other language spoken]

No further questions.

No, I don't see any.

I don't know if you had any final comments before we wrap up or I just want to thank you again.

Thank you again for your interest for coming.

This is a very difficult process to try to collect evidence and hope for criminal prosecutions in around the world for crimes in a in a country that's in the midst of a very serious civil conflict.

But we think it's still very important that victims know someone is collecting evidence.

Someday there may be justice, some for what has happened to them.

And also that potential perpetrators know, again, someone is watching, someone is collecting evidence.

You can't be sure that you won't be prosecuted if you commit the crime that you're contemplating.

So thank you again for your interest next to you.

[Other language spoken]

We'll be back at 10:30 sharp to start our regular briefing.

[Other language spoken]