One Month after a Myanmar School Massacre, UN Experts should slam the International Community’s Inaction and Demand the Protection of Myanmar Children

Today marks one month since the Myanmar military junta’s horrific airstrike on a school in Depayin Township of Sagaing Region. On 12 May 2025, at least 22 children, some as young as seven, and two teachers were killed when a junta jet dropped bombs on children sitting their morning exams. As many as 105 other civilians were wounded.

In an appallingly similar incident back in September 2022 that is now known as the Let Yet Kone massacre, at least 12 people, including seven children, were killed in a brutal air and ground assault by junta forces on another school in Depayin Township located inside a monastery compound.

These atrocities expose the junta’s established pattern of targeted attacks on children, which aims to destroy yet another generation of Myanmar youth. This punitive strategy is seen in the junta’s repeated attacks on schools, its targeting of educators, its destruction of livelihoods, its forced recruitment, displacement and detention of children, and its denial of humanitarian assistance. The junta publicly defends its proclaimed right to massacre children—even dismissing its April 2023 killing of dozens of children in airstrikes on Pa Zi Gyi village in Sagaing region as merely “collateral damage”.

Yet these attacks continue to draw silence and inaction from the international community and are quickly forgotten—just as the junta expects. ASEAN leaders wholly ignored the recent school bombing despite meeting in person two weeks after the atrocity. They opted instead to issue a disgraceful statement that expressed appreciation for a non-existent junta ceasefire, and perpetuated a perverse equivalence between the junta’s widespread and systematic atrocities against civilians and the resistance efforts of revolutionary forces.

The UN Secretary-General’s latest report on children and armed conflict in Myanmar documents a more than 400 per cent increase in grave violations against children compared to the previous year. In a briefing to the UN General Assembly on 10 June 2025, UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Julie Bishop confirmed that children “have been targeted in what should be safe spaces—schools, hospitals and place of worship”, and described Myanmar as on “a path to self-destruction.” Children are bearing the brunt of this destruction. Calling on the UN and the international community to act, the Special Envoy described the Myanmar crisis as “a test of our relevance.”

SAC-M has written to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and to Virginia Gamba, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, urging them to speak out publicly and to champion the protection of children in Myanmar.

See SAC-M’s letter to SRSG Gamba and SAC-M’s alert on the bombing shared with the CRC

This could see a coordinated campaign with other UN experts and mandate-holders to:

• demand that the military junta immediately end its attacks and other grave violations against children, including its ongoing recruitment and use of children in the armed conflict

• demand that the junta immediately release all abducted and detained children

• demand that the junta immediately end its manipulation and denial of humanitarian assistance to children

• pressure the UN Security Council to protect children in Myanmar by (a) demanding an immediate end to all junta attacks and a total countrywide ceasefire, (b) blocking the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions, jet fuel, and other military equipment to the junta, and (c) facilitating the urgent, impartial and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian and material assistance by all available means to all children and communities in need

• demand accountability for crimes against children, including by calling on the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for senior general Min Aung Hlaing and other junta members, and by encouraging States that exercise universal jurisdiction to use their national courts to prosecute alleged perpetrators of grave violations against children

• call out States that provide arms, munitions, jet fuel, and other military equipment to the junta as complicit in international crimes and grave violations against children

• pressure individual States to adopt and enforce punitive measures against junta members and their associates and business interests, and

• demand that the UN be given unfettered access to all conflict-affected areas to protect children, facilitate access to medical and humanitarian assistance, monitor and report on grave violations against children, provide support to child survivors including specialized services, and prevent recurrence.

Download SAC-M correspondence to SRSG Gamba

Download CRC – Depayin school attack (12 May 2025)

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