Atrocities and widespread abuse is occurring in Myanmar as the conflict between the ruling military junta and armed ethnic minority groups intensifies, the UN has warned.

The violence includes systematic atrocities, including torture, sexual violence, and attacks where civilians were “the target”, the UN’s human rights chief says.

Speaking to the UN’s Human Rights Council, Nicholas Koumjian, the head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), said the situation is particularly bad in Rakhine State, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims are caught in the crossfire between the military rulers and the Arakan Army, the largest and most well-known armed ethnic group in the country.

“They have been directly targeted and thousands forcibly displaced from their homes,” he said.

Rakhine State was the site of a brutal military crackdown by the former government in 2017 that led more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh, and now activists and residents warn of a similar situation, with both sides now being accused of abuses against the long-persecuted Rohingya minority.

Exacerbating the troubles faced by the Rohingya is the fact that Bangladesh, which is facing its own crisis after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled last month, has increased border security in a bid to keep Rohingya refugees out.

Mr Koumjian also warned of airstrikes, almost entirely conducted by the junta, on camps housing Internally Displaced Persons, weddings, schools and monasteries.

Although western countries have imposed jet fuel sanctions against the military, activists say those sanctions are not being properly implemented, despite the clear evidence of their toll on civilians.

“Just last week, airstrikes near a night market in northern Shan state reportedly killed about a dozen people, including a pregnant woman and two children,” Mr Koumjian said.

He said his group had also received reports of abuses carried out while people have been detained.

“Victims and witnesses have recounted beatings, electric shocks, strangulations and torture by pulling out fingernails with pliers. There is evidence that minors and other victims of all genders have been subjected to gang rape, burns on sexual body parts and other violent sexual and gender-based crimes,” Mr Koumjian said.

The conflict in Myanmar has now internally displaced at least three million people, the UN as said.

Internally displaced people increased by 50 per cent in the six months to May 2024 due to the ongoing conflict.

The February 2021 coup, in which the military junta took power, has made worse the pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar and the situation has only escalated since.

The UN says that now almost 19 million people, more than a third of the population, now require humanitarian assistance.