"The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (aka Forum-Asia), Progressive Voice and the Karen Human Rights Group are calling on member and observer states of the UN Human Rights Council to take concrete action to ensure justice and accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes perpetrated against ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar. We are deeply concerned regarding the escalation in conflict, particularly in Rakhine and Shan states, and are urging the UNHRC to broaden the mandate of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar regularly to document and report violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law in that country. Shan state has observed an escalation in conflict since the factions of the Northern Alliance’s Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) carried out attacks against the Myanmar military’s Defense Service Technological Academy at Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay Region, as well as a toll gate, customs house and police security outpost on August 15. The military was quick to retaliate, with some of the worst fighting observed in Lashio and Kutkai. In Lashio, the military used Buddhist temples to fire shells into villages, resulting in the death of a 52-year-old farmer. In Kutkai, parents and family grieved the death of three Kachin children due to heavy shelling between the Northern Alliance and the military..."