On Tuesday, the UK imposed further sanctions targeting the Myanmar military’s access to
equipment and funds, saying the measures would hinder the junta’s ability to carry out airstrikes on civilians.
Taken in coordination with the European Union and Canada, the financial sanctions target six entities involved either in providing aviation fuel to Myanmar’s military or in the supply
of restricted goods, including aircraft parts, the British government said.
The sanctions bolster previous measures against aviation fuel suppliers to the Myanmar military, it added, and involve asset freezes that will prohibit financial dealings by the
entities.
“The human rights violations taking place across Myanmar, including airstrikes on civilian infrastructure, by the Myanmar military is unacceptable and the impact on innocent civilians is intolerable,” Britain’s minister for the Indo-Pacific region, Catherine West, said.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s junta did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
Myanmar is locked in a civil war between an armed resistance movement loosely allied with ethnic minority rebels, and a military that has lost control of swathes of the country
following a 2021 coup against a government led by former leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Britain said the military was using increasingly “brutal tactics” to remain in power and had killed dozens of civilians in a record number of airstrikes carried out in August.
The EU said it had imposed sanctions on three individuals and one company associated with Myanmar’s junta for alleged human rights violations.
The civil war has displaced over three million people and at least 18 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. Add to that, the general breakdown of law, order and governmental institutions has seen a rise in crime of every kind including human and arms trafficking.
Currently, the ethnic rebels fighting to overthrow the military junta have driven it out of 50,000 sq. km, which is roughly the size of Bosnia, and they are within striking distance of the former royal capital of Mandalay, in central Myanmar.
With Reuters inputs
