Exposing Rampant Violations of IHL in the Asia Pacific

From August 11 to 14, 2025, the Philippines proudly hosted the largest Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to date, gathering over 120 delegates from 24 countries across Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific. The conference, themed “Galvanising Commitment to International Humanitarian Law: Challenges and Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Region,” underscored the importance of upholding the Geneva Conventions, which are supposed to protect civilians and ensure accountability for violations.

However, this vision of shared commitment stands in stark contrast to the grim reality unfolding across the Asia Pacific region, where the laws of war are routinely ignored, and civilians bear the brunt of the violations of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Central India

• Operation Kagaar highlights how counterinsurgency strategies veer towards systemic repression of Indigenous communities under the guise of security. Despite the government’s portrayal of decisive action against Maoism, the high civilian death toll, militarization of tribal areas, and suppression of dissent raise urgent concerns under international humanitarian and human rights frameworks.
• Over 450 killings in Bastar have been documented since January 2024, including elderly people and children. More than 300 villages were reportedly burned, and widespread displacement occurred, with approximately one-third being Adivasi civilians who were mislabeled as combatants.
• The killing of 29 individuals, including 12 women, in Maad on April 16, 2025, and more than 30 people in Narayanpur on May 21, where Maoist leader Nambala Keshava Rao was killed, are cited as extrajudicial.

Myanmar

• Air campaigns by the junta have escalated brutally, with repeated strikes on schools, hospitals, religious buildings, markets, and crowded villages. In early 2025 alone, at least 58 airstrikes were recorded, targeting civilian areas, resulting in over 86 deaths and more than 200 injuries. A notable attack on a school in Depayin killed 22 individuals, including children and teachers.

West Papua

• Recent military campaigns by Indonesian state forces, particularly in Intan Jaya, Nduga, Yahukimo, and Puncak regencies, have inflicted devastating harm on West Papuan communities. Reports indicate the use of drone strikes and indiscriminate explosive munitions, killing and injuring dozens of civilians. Villages have been burned, churches were attacked, and homes, sacred spaces, and food sources were destroyed. These assaults have forced the mass displacement of entire communities, with thousands of West Papuans driven away from their ancestral lands. Many now face acute food shortages and seek refuge in overcrowded shelters, including churches in Sugapa, where conditions remain dire.

Hypocrisy is evident in the Philippine government. While it presents itself as a champion of IHL before the international community, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have committed well-documented violations in the country. Entire rural communities have been subjected to aerial bombings, artillery shelling, and indiscriminate strafing by the military. Moreover, intensifying counterinsurgency operations have destroyed homes, farmlands, and livelihoods, and forced mass evacuations. Civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, have been caught in the crossfire or directly targeted under the regime’s counterinsurgency campaign. Extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and the militarization of indigenous and peasant communities have become rampant, revealing a pattern of state-perpetrated violence that stands in direct violation of the very humanitarian principles the government claims to uphold.

Bohol

• February 2024
  • In Bilar, Bohol, five members of the New People’s Army (NPA) were executed after being captured by state forces. Witnesses reported that the individuals were no longer engaged in combat, placing them under the protection of International Humanitarian Law as persons hors de combat. Instead of being treated humanely and afforded due process, their lives were summarily taken, which is a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. Their bodies bore signs of mutilation, suggesting deliberate cruelty intended to desecrate the dead and instill fear among the local population. Such acts not only breach the principle of humane treatment but also constitute grave breaches of IHL amounting to war crimes when committed in the context of armed conflict. This incident reflects a wider pattern in counterinsurgency operations where captured combatants are denied their rights and subjected to extrajudicial execution, undermining the rule of law and eroding public trust in state institutions.

Mindoro

• February to March 2025
  • Helicopter and gunships strafed and bombed Mangyan villages in Oriental Mindoro, damaging homes, farms, and schools, and forcing mass displacement. Soldiers occupied schools, imposed curfews, conducted house-to-house searches, and restricted access to food and livelihoods. Humanitarian and fact-finding missions sent to investigate were harassed and subjected to threats, harassment, and intimidation by military agents.
  • On August 1, 2025, up to 100 troops of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army conducted combat operations in the mountains of Barangay Naibuan, San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, resulting in the killing of Juan Sumilig, a farmer. Witnesses report that Sumilig was unarmed and engaged in farm work when he was shot, a clear violation of the principle of distinction under IHL.

These incidents form part of a broader pattern of indiscriminate attacks and civilian targeting by state forces, which is a direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity (RA 9851).

Negros Occidental (February 22, 2024)

• In Escalante, Negros Occidental, a military helicopter is reported to have fired at least five rockets into a vegetable-planted residential area in Barangay Pinapugasan. This aerial assault prompted the forced evacuation of more than 300 families and destroyed crops and homes. Harrowing footage showed tracer rounds flying over civilian houses at night, signaling indiscriminate engagement in a populated zone. Such attacks blatantly violate the IHL principle of distinction, which prohibits targeting civilians and civilian objects.

Quezon Province

• On August 2, 2025, the military launched aerial bombing and strafing operations beginning at approximately 5 pm in Barangay Maguibuay, Tagkawayan, continuing into the night. Explosions occurred near homes and farmlands, displacing families and disrupting their livelihoods, constituting a violation of the protections afforded to civilians and civilian infrastructure under the Geneva Conventions and domestic law.

As the International Humanitarian Law Conference takes place in the Philippines, the realities across the Asia Pacific stand in bloody contrast. Every victim demands justice. Every displaced family is a living indictment of regimes that claim to uphold humanitarian law while trampling it underfoot. No conference, statement, or diplomatic handshake can erase these crimes. The Asia Pacific Research Network calls on all peoples of the region to unite in exposing and resisting the escalating violations of International Humanitarian Law and human rights