Myanmar’s junta forces are now ‘unable to control the country’ despite seizing power through a coup. That is why they are ‘trying to destroy the country’, warned UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews.

On February 1, 2021, the country’s military seized power in Myanmar after overthrowing the democratically elected government through a coup. Although the coup was bloodless, bloody protests spread across the Southeast Asian country a few days later.

A cease-fire agreement was signed in January this year at the initiative of China to stop the fighting that spread in the northern part of the country after the coup.

Myanmar’s military has been fighting a fierce battle with a coalition of armed rebel groups from the country’s ethnic minorities, overturning that deal. Coalitions of armed rebel groups are taking control of one border town and region after another.

Andrews told the National Security Council of neighboring Thailand in a brief press conference on Tuesday, “The time of the junta forces is running out.” Their soldiers are dying, their military capability is diminishing, they are really losing. Now it looks like the junta forces are trying to destroy a country they cannot control.

The UN official also said that the junta forces are now attacking civilians in response to their defeat by the armed rebels. He said, “There has been a significant increase in the number of attacks on schools, hospitals and Buddhist monasteries in the last six months.” This number is much, much higher.