75 children killed, 1,000 detained since Myanmar coup: UN

GENEVA: Dozens of children have been killed and hundreds arbitrarily detained in Myanmar since a coup more than five months ago, UN rights experts warned on Friday.

The UN child rights committee said it had received “credible information” that 75 children had been killed and around 1,000 arrested in Myanmar since February 1.

“Children in Myanmar are under siege and facing catastrophic loss of life because of the military coup,” committee chair Mikiko Otani said in a statement. The country has experienced mass protests and a brutal military response since the coup which ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Children are exposed to indiscriminate violence, random shootings and arbitrary arrests every day,” Otani said.

“They have guns pointed at them, and see the same happen to their parents and siblings.”

The committee is made up of 18 independent experts who are tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Myanmar signed onto in 1991. The experts said they “strongly condemned the killing of children by the junta and police”, pointing out that “some victims were killed in their own homes”.

They included a six-year old girl in the city of Mandalay, shot in the stomach by police, the statement said.