Human rights situation in Myanmar ‘plummets to new low’, UN says

What the report says

The United Nations said Myanmar’s human rights situation has fallen to a “new low,” according to a report published by the UN human rights office and reported by Al Jazeera on 26 August 2026. The assessment says abuses are worsening across the country as the military, which took power in a 2021 coup, continues fighting ethnic armed groups and militias while trying to consolidate control.

Al Jazeera reported that the UN document describes a pattern of airstrikes, arson, forced displacement and blocked aid affecting civilians. It also says the Rohingya minority in western Rakhine State continues to face grave abuses from both the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, including arrests, torture, sexual violence, forced labor and recruitment, and attacks on villages and religious sites. The report links the ongoing violence to renewed displacement nearly nine years after a previous crackdown drove roughly 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.

The UN report also points to wider consequences of Myanmar’s lawless environment, including a growing illicit economy. It highlights illegal rare-earth mining in Kachin and Shan states and says this has helped expand transnational criminal networks and caused environmental contamination. The report says that contamination may be affecting maternal and reproductive health. Al Jazeera said the findings underline how conflict, persecution and resource exploitation are deepening the country’s humanitarian crisis, with large numbers of civilians killed, displaced and facing hunger.