Myanmar's junta targeting earthquake survivors is a red line - the UN must act now

As the powerful aftershocks from the Myanmar earthquake were being felt around the country, the junta’s air force was in action over the epicentre, conducting airstrikes against the natural disaster’s victims.

- CHRISTOPHER GUNNESS

Defenceless civilians, traumatised and trapped under rubble, were bombed from the skies, as were the first responders attempting to rescue them.

With his fighter jets circling over central Myanmar, the Burmese dictator Min Aung Hlaing appeared on television to appeal for international aid.

Targeting earthquake survivors ought to be a red line in anyone’s book. It should also be a wake-up call for the UK delegation at the UN Security Council.

It must now act to secure wider support for the relief effort. In such matters, it has form. In 2022, in response to mounting violence, the UK midwifed the only Security Council resolution on Myanmar in the UN’s history.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office must again marshal its considerable diplomatic skills to persuade council members to sign up to a resolution imposing an extended humanitarian pause in the fighting, specifically prohibiting attacks by junta jets, helicopters, motored paragliders and drones.

Far from leading the relief effort, Myanmar’s military has sought to leverage military advantage at a time of national catastrophe. Ending this outrage should not be a difficult sell to the UN Security Council.

The humanitarian pause should be an informal but binding agreement, not a formal ceasefire, which would serve to legitimise a junta widely rejected by the Burmese people as illegitimate.