A/HRC/45/5 Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army in Rakhine and Chin States has intensified in scale and ferocity, resulting in deaths and injuries, and destruction of civilian property and other civilian objects, including schools and places of worship, and has forced tens of thousands of people into internal displacement. 6. Tatmadaw tactics have shifted, with periodic reliance on airpower against the Arakan Army, but in some instances it appears that civilians may have been directly targeted. There was a significant increase in incidents of airstrikes by fighter jets, and helicopter and heavy artillery attacks, and in ground battles in more densely populated civilian areas. For the most part, however, it appears that the Arakan Army was not active or present in the areas where these attacks took place and no armed clashes were reported to have been ongoing at that time. On 7 April 2020, fighter jets conducted an airstrike in Chin State, killing seven civilians and wounding six women and one child. Eight houses and a rice mill were destroyed and the villagers were forced to flee. They remain displaced as of July 2020. 7. While violence affected all communities in Rakhine and Chin, ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya civilians have borne the brunt of the impact of the conflict. During the first five months of 2020, at least 137 civilians were reportedly killed and 386 wounded, including women, children and elderly persons. These numbers include 25 Rohingya deaths and injuries to 44 others. The number of civilian casualties in the first quarter of 2020 may have already surpassed the total number of civilians killed and injured in 2019. In one attack on 29 February 2020, a Tatmadaw convoy opened fire on a village in Mrauk-U township, killing six Rohingya and wounding another six. According to eyewitnesses, the Tatmadaw fired indiscriminately on the village for over an hour after a vehicle in their convoy had been damaged by a mine explosion. 8. Schools, religious sites and civilian homes have been targeted in attacks and damaged by heavy artillery or by Tatmadaw patrols. 4 On 13 February 2020, at least 17 schoolchildren, aged between 5 and 12, were wounded when a mortar shell hit a primary school in Khamwe Chaung village, Buthidaung township. Over 60 students were in the school at the time. On 13 March, three artillery shells hit a monastery in Tin Ma village, Kyauktaw township, causing serious damage to the building. On 29 March, in Pha Bro village, Minbya township, soldiers set houses and a school on fire and destroyed the local monastery with a rocket-propelled grenade. 9. Tatmadaw units have undertaken widespread arbitrary arrests and detention of civilians. Use of torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment against detainees has also been alleged. In some cases, the Tatmadaw have rounded up the entire male populations of villages, often blindfolding them, before transferring them to unknown locations. On 19 April 2020 in Kyauk Seik, 39 men were arrested and subjected to ill-treatment. At time of finalization of the present report, five remain in custody, charged with terrorism offences. The identities of these five individuals were confirmed by family members from a video that was circulated online showing soldiers abusing the men on a boat. In another incident, on 26 February 2020, two of the six men arrested by the Tatmadaw near Tin Ma village, Kyauktaw township, died in custody after being beaten, stabbed, and burned with boiling water. One of the men was hung by his feet from a tree and beaten by soldiers. Their bodies have not been returned to their families. Several arrests and disappearances occurred at military checkpoints. A number of the persons concerned were subsequently convicted of terrorism offences and have remained in detention, whereas others remain missing. In some instances, family members found bodies of victims bearing severe injuries, days after their initial arrest. For example, on 16 April 2020 in Kyauktaw, the bodies of three men – detained at a military checkpoint – were found in a river days later, with gunshot wounds and signs of severe abuse. 10. Evidence indicates that Tatmadaw units have unlawfully killed civilians in circumstances where no armed clashes were taking place. On 22 April 2020, Tatmadaw soldiers fired a rocket-propelled grenade, severely injuring a man as he tended buffalo in 4 Of the 12 attacks on schools recorded in 2019, eight were attributed to the Tatmadaw; see A/74/845S/2020/525, para. 127. 3