The Myanmar military keeps on conducting lethal air strikes, targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure

18-03-2024

Pauliina Majasaari

Human Rights Researcher 

Global Human Rights Defence

On January 7th 2024, the Myanmar military conducted air strikes in the Kanan village in Sagaing region, damaging a church, a school, and six civilian houses.[i] The attack killed 17 civilians, of which nine were children attending Sunday church.[ii] The Myanmar military is not taking responsibility for the attacks and denies the occurrence of them.[iii]

The coup of 2021 in Myanmar led to a military takeover, after which the military junta has been conducting deadly airstrikes within different states and villages, resulting in multiple deaths, injuries, displacements, and communities being destroyed.[iv] According to the director of Amnesty’s crisis response programme, ‘The Myanmar military’s deadly attacks on civilians show no signs of stopping’.[v] In March 2023, Amnesty International released new evidence of companies supplying jet fuel to Myanmar. After this, the UK, the USA, Canada, the EU, and Switzerland imposed sanctions on companies for their importation of jet fuel to Myanmar.[vi] However, the Myanmar military has been finding other avenues to bring fuel into the country by the use of intermediaries which makes the tracking of where the fuel has originated much harder.[vii]

As set under the Fourth Geneva Convention which protects civilians from armed conflicts, Common Article 3 states that within a non-international armed conflict, acts of violence towards persons not taking an active part in the hostilities is prohibited. [viii] Furthermore, certain rules pertaining to warfare hold customary status and thereby bind states even though they would not be a state party to a certain convention.  The Principle of Distinction between Civilian Objects and Military Objectives, Rule 7, which holds customary status and applies to both international and non-international armed conflicts, obliges the parties in a conflict to distinguish civilian objects from military objectives. It prohibits direct attacks towards civilian objects and only allows attacks to be directed towards military objectives.[ix] Furthermore, in case an attack that has been targeted against a military objective causes incidental damage to civilian objects, the attack is not regarded as unlawful.[x] Civilian objects are regarded as every other object that is not military objectives, and can include objects such as villages, residential areas, houses, schools and places of worship amongst others.[xi] In turn, military objectives are objects which by their ‘nature, purpose, use or location make an effective contribution to military action’ and of which full or partial destruction gives a real military advantage, such objects can include buildings where enemy forces, material and armaments are kept.[xii]

The actions of the Myanmar military are against international humanitarian law and are specifically in contradiction with the Common Article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as Rule 7 of customary international law. Firstly, Common Article 3 is not being respected by Myanmar as 17 civilians, who were not taking active part in the hostilities, died. This is  classified as violence to life, as a result of the air strike on the church in Kanan village.[xiii] Similarly, two children who were playing by a school yard nearby were killed due to the bombing from air.[xiv] Furthermore, as civilians were trying to escape the air strikes, the military targeted bombs at the fleeing civilians, leading to severe injuries and deaths.[xv] Even though at the time of the church bombing, the Kanan village was under the control of a civilian armed group called People’s Defence Force, there is evidence that members of the armed civilian group were not present in the area of bombings and thereby the Myanmar military did not have lawful targets for the airstrikes.[xvi] Secondly, in line with Rule 7, the Myanmar military has failed its obligation to distinguish between attacks on civilian objects and military objectives as the military dropped bombs within three locations that were near the St Peter Baptist church, a school and a residential area.[xvii] As mentioned, all the aforementioned objects are considered as civilian objects and therefore should not be targeted within warfare.

Therefore, Myanmar has been urged by the international community to stop conducting airstrikes to the detriment of innocent civilians, as reiterated within the Fourth Geneva Convention which seeks to protect civilians from the armed conflict.[xviii] Moreover, international actors, such as Amnesty International, have been urging the suspension of imports of jet fuel to Myanmar, to stop the lethal air strikes conducted by the military.[xix]

[i] ‘Myanmar: Military air strikes that killed 17 civilians ‘must be investigated as war crimes’’ (Amnesty International, February 8th 2024) <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/myanmar-military-air-strikes-that-killed-17-civilians-must-be-investigated-as-war-crimes/> accessed March 18th 2024.

[ii] ibid.

[iii] ibid.

[iv] ‘Myanmar: New data suggests military still importing fuel for deadly air strikes despite sanctions’ (Amnesty International, January 31st 2024) <https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/myanmar-new-data-suggests-military-still-importing-fuel-for-deadly-air-strikes-despite-sanctions/> accessed March 18th 2024.

[v] Al Jazeera Staff, ’Amnesty calls for war crimes probe over Myanmar military bombing of church’ (Al Jazeera, February 8th 2024) <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/8/amnesty-calls-for-war-crimes-probe-over-myanmar-military-bombing-of-church> accessed March 18th 2024.

[vi] ‘Myanmar: New data suggests military still importing fuel for deadly air strikes despite sanctions’ (n iv).

[vii] ibid.

[viii] Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war (adopted 12 august 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 287 (Fourth Geneva Convention).

[ix] ‘Rule 7. The Principle of Distinction between Civilian Objects and Military Objectives’ (ICRC) <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule7#title-3> accessed March 18th 2024.

[x] ibid.

[xi] ‘Rule 9. Definition of Civilian Objectives’ (ICRC) <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule9> accessed March 18th 2024.

[xii] ‘Rule 8. Definition of Military Objectives’ (ICRC) <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule8> accessed March 18th 2024.

[xiii] Al Jazeera Staff (n v).

[xiv] ‘Myanmar: Military air strikes that killed 17 civilians ‘must be investigated as war crimes’’ (n i).

[xv] ibid.

[xvi] ibid.

[xvii] ibid.

[xviii] ibid.

[xix] ‘Myanmar: New data suggests military still importing fuel for deadly air strikes despite sanctions’ (n iv).