Civil Society Groups Urge UN Arms Embargo on Myanmar
Voice of America
NEW YORK - More than 200 civil society and human rights groups from around the world have called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo against Myanmar, in hopes of preventing the military from carrying out more murders and atrocities.
“The U.N. Security Council’s failure to even discuss an arms embargo against the junta is an appalling abdication of its responsibilities toward the people of Myanmar,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, told reporters Wednesday in a call with some of the groups that signed the letter. “The council’s occasional statements of concern in the face of the military’s violent repression of largely peaceful protesters [are] the diplomatic equivalent of shrugging their shoulders and walking away.” The council has issued four statements of concern since the military launched a coup on February 1, ousting the civilian-led government and detaining several of its members in a dispute over who won the November elections. On April 24, regional bloc ASEAN convened a summit on the situation, issuing a five-point communique. More than 760 civilians killedPalestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
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