New Fortify Rights report documents ongoing junta war crimes in Karenni State and Karenni-Shan State border
(BANGKOK, November 19, 2025)—The Myanmar military junta is waging a deadly and unlawful campaign of aerial attacks on civilians in Karenni State and along the Karenni-Shan State border, deliberately targeting schools, churches, medical facilities, and displacement camps in violation of the laws of war ahead of its “sham elections,” said Fortify Rights in a new report published today. The U.N. Security Council and individual U.N. member states should immediately impose comprehensive arms and aviation fuel embargoes on the Myanmar military junta and refuse recognition of its planned “elections,” being conducted amid the ongoing persecution, imprisonment, and killings of political opponents.
“The Myanmar military junta’s strategy for political and military gain is to kill more civilians and target key infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, ahead of its sham elections,” said Sai Arkar, a human rights defender at Fortify Rights. “The world is watching these atrocities unfold in silence, when immediate action is required to stop them. Impunity is deadly. The U.N. Security Council and other member states must immediately cut the aviation fuel and weapons flows that enable the junta’s continued reign of terror, and must work to prosecute those responsible for ongoing mass atrocity crimes.”
A new 24-page report by Fortify Rights, “Horrible Sight to Witness,” documents 12 junta airstrikes in Karenni State and on the Karenni-Shan State border between June and September 2025. The attacks killed at least 55 civilians, injured more than 40 others, and destroyed schools, churches, medical facilities, displacement camps, and homes. These airstrikes likely amount to war crimes. The report does not reflect all of the airstrikes in Karenni and Shan states during the designated time period, only those investigated by Fortify Rights.
Fortify Rights interviewed 15 survivors, eyewitnesses, and first responders, and analyzed casualty lists, photographs, and videos from the attacks.
In one example, in a single attack on Sat Chauk Kone Quarter in Hpasawng Township, Karenni State, on August 17, junta fighter jets killed at least 32 civilians, including children, and injured five others.
On September 1, 2025, a junta airstrike struck an internally displaced persons camp in Demoso Township, Karenni State, known as “Number Three Camp.” The bomb landed near a kindergarten, injuring two adults and an 11-year-old Grade 5 student walking to a nearby primary school.
“May,” 36, a teacher at the kindergarten school, described the attack to Fortify Rights:
[The bomb] fell on a bamboo grove very close to the kindergarten. … If it had fallen right on the [school], there would have been nothing left [of the students]. … The children are very scared. They were already studying in fear. … Now, we have temporarily closed the school.
“Daw Lae Lae,” 38, a member of the displacement-camp committee—a body that oversees camp management—told Fortify Rights:
[The wounded fifth-grade student] was hit in the thigh and taken to the hospital. Thankfully, the injuries were not serious. At the time of the attack [8:30 a.m.], some students were still at home, while others had already arrived at school.
Another incident documented in “Horrible Sight to Witness” describes how, on July 14, 2025, three bombs hit a village in Demoso Township, striking a school, a residential area, and a medical clinic. “Michael,” 31, a medical volunteer, told Fortify Rights he believed the junta deliberately targeted the school and clinic:
We went to check on the school … [and] when we came back to our place … the plane suddenly dropped another bomb [on the clinic]. We all immediately ran to the bomb shelter … The clinic was destroyed. The gas stoves were on fire … I feel like this is what [the junta] usually does. They target schools and clinics.
“Michael” explained that the clinic provided medical services to anyone in need of medical assistance, including civilians, resistance fighters, and prisoners of war.
The Myanmar military junta’s planned “elections” in December 2025 and January 2026 are widely viewed as an attempt to legitimize its rule, following its February 2021 illegal seizure of power to overturn the results of a democratic election. A credible vote is impossible due to the junta’s ongoing crimes and lack of space for meaningful political participation in the country, with many opposition leaders, including the former democratically elected government, imprisoned or killed. The international community should continue to reject the legitimacy of the military junta’s coup and to demand a return to dialogue and a democratic transition
In Karenni State, a key resistance stronghold, the junta announced on August 20, 2025, that the first phase of its election, scheduled for December 28, will cover only two of the state’s seven townships, Bawlakhe and Loikaw, both under junta control. On October 29, 2025, the junta declared a second phase scheduled for January 11, 2026, which includes two additional townships, Demoso and Hpruso.
Under international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, parties involved in an armed conflict are required to distinguish between combatants and “military objectives,” which may be subjected to military attack, and civilians and “civilian objects,” such as homes and hospitals that are not being used for military purposes, which are protected from military attacks.
The Myanmar military junta’s repeated airstrikes on civilian areas did not serve any legitimate military purpose and likely constitute war crimes. These attacks continue a broader pattern of junta attacks against civilian targets throughout the country, said Fortify Rights.
On September 4, 2025, Fortify Rights published “Crashing Down on Us,” an 86-page report documenting airstrikes by the Myanmar junta on civilians in Kachin and Karenni states. That report revealed the identities of 22 junta officials, military commands, and units to be investigated and potentially prosecuted for war crimes related to the airstrikes.
In both the current investigation and the earlier “Crashing Down on Us” report, almost all the areas the junta targeted had protected status under international law—including medical facilities, schools, places of worship, and displaced persons camps—with no military presence nearby. The junta’s consistent targeting of these protected civilian sites strongly suggests that the attacks were deliberate, constituting a graver breach of the laws of war than indiscriminate attacks.
In August 2025, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the same pattern of indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians, recommending an arms embargo against the junta:
A global arms embargo, including on jet fuel, drones and dual-use equipment, to hinder the military’s reliance on air power and improve civilian protection, is an urgent priority. The reliance of the military on aerial weaponry and its use of drones and paramotors have steadily risen over the years, leading to a near doubling of civilians killed by air strikes in 2024 compared with 2023, underscoring the need to continually update controls on the transfer of such equipment.
“Civilians live each day under the terror of bombs falling from the sky, and children running and hiding in fear at the sound of planes,” said Winter Berry, a human rights defender at Fortify Rights. “The Myanmar junta is bombing and killing its own people to hold onto power and must be stopped. Failing to act now only guarantees its impunity and allows these atrocities to continue.”