ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
Recent Posts
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UN probe finds evidence of ‘systematic torture’ in Myanmar
/in NewsInvestigators name senior figures among those responsible for alleged abuses at detention facilities.
United Nations investigators say they have gathered evidence of systematic torture in Myanmar’s detention facilities, identifying senior figures among those responsible.
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), set up in 2018 to examine potential breaches of international law, said on Tuesday that detainees had endured beatings, electric shocks, strangulation and fingernail removal with pliers.
“We have uncovered significant evidence, including eyewitness testimony, showing systematic torture in Myanmar detention facilities,” Nicholas Koumjian, head of the mechanism, said in a statement accompanying its 16-page report.
The UN team said some prisoners died as a result of the torture.
It also documented the abuse of children, often detained unlawfully as proxies for their missing parents.
According to the report, the UN team has made more than two dozen formal requests for information and access to the country, all of which have gone unanswered. Myanmar’s military authorities did not respond to media requests for comment.
The military has repeatedly denied committing atrocities, saying it is maintaining peace and security while blaming “terrorists” for unrest.
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The findings cover a year that ended on June 30 and draw on information from more than 1,300 sources, including hundreds of witness accounts, forensic analysis, photographs and documents.
The IIMM said it identified high-ranking commanders among the perpetrators but declined to name them to avoid alerting those under investigation.
The report also found that both government forces and armed opposition groups had committed summary executions. Officials from neither side of Myanmar’s conflict were available to comment.
The latest turmoil in Myanmar began when a 2021 military coup ousted an elected civilian government, sparking a nationwide conflict. The UN estimates tens of thousands of people have been detained in efforts to crush dissent and bolster the military’s ranks.
Last month, the leader of the military government, Min Aung Hlaing, ended a four-year state of emergency and appointed himself acting president before planned elections.
The IIMM’s mandate covers abuses in Myanmar dating back to 2011, including the military’s 2017 campaign against the mostly Muslim Rohingya, which forced hundreds of thousands of members of the ethnic minority to flee to Bangladesh, and postcoup atrocities against multiple communities.
The IIMM is also assisting international legal proceedings, including cases in Britain. However, the report warned that budget cuts at the UN could undermine its work.
“These financial pressures threaten the Mechanism’s ability to sustain its critical work and to continue supporting international and national justice efforts,” it said.
Al Jazeera News
Karen National Union headquarters in Hpa-An District of Karen State ‘bombed 20 times’
/in NewsTwenty airstrikes were reportedly carried out on the Karen National Union (KNU) Brigade 7 headquarters in the state capital Hpa-An District on Sunday. The KNU headquarters is located on the Myanmar-Thailand border opposite Tha Song Yang District of Tak Province.
A resident told DVB that they counted 25 airstrikes with some bombs remaining unexploded. Initial reports said bombs landed on a hospital, and one civilian sustained minor injuries. No fatalities have been reported by the KNU.
A source in the KNU told DVB that an unknown number of residents fled across the Thaungyin (Moei) River into Thailand’s Tak Province to seek safety.
Thai media reported that the authorities are providing temporary shelter for residents from Karen State who have fled their homes due to airstrikes carried out by the Myanmar Air Force.
These strikes are taking place two days ahead of a planned gathering for Karen Martyrs’ Day, which commemorates the assassination of Karen leader Saw Ba U Gyi on Aug. 12, 1950.
Sources told DVB that the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, and its allied resistance forces have been fighting regime forces over control of the Wawlay outpost in Myawaddy Township since July 3.
Only the Wawlay and Htithellel outposts remain under regime control in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township, which is located along the Myanmar-Thailand border 82 miles (131 km) east of Hpa-An.
The KNU stated that the regime launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or drone, attacks against Brigade 7 on March 18 but reported no casualties.
DVB News
Reporting on rights and wrongs for whom in Myanmar?
/in NewsGuest contributor
David Scott Mathieson
In what has to be one of the most damning headlines so far this year, the U.N. admitted its written output of activities doesn’t amount to much. “UN report finds United Nations reports are not widely read”, says a headline in Reuters published on Aug. 2.
The U.N. is strapped for cash, and after decades of dithering, is finally confronting the necessity of reform. According to a report released by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres the day before, the U.N. now has 40,000 active mandates, involving 400 intergovernmental bodies, which holds 27,000 meetings a year, and produces 2,300 pages of documentation per day, at an annual cost of $360 million USD.
Last year, the U.N. Secretariat produced 1,100 reports, a 20 percent increase since 1990. Annual report word lengths have increased 40 percent since 2005 with an average 11,300 words per report. These statistics are contained in the Report of the Mandate Implementation Review, as part of the UN80 Initiative to streamline the world body.
On page 20 of the report, it claimed that, “(d)espite the vast output, or perhaps partly because of it, most reports are not widely read. Last year, nearly 65 per cent were downloaded fewer than 2,000 times, compared to the top 5 per cent of reports that were accessed at least 5,500 times. Download statistics alone are not proof of a report’s utility: important issues may not always find wide public leadership.”
Why does the U.N. spend $360 million USD on reports very few people read?
Pathways to human rights protection
To put this paper monster into perspective, let’s analyze just one recent report on Myanmar and the human rights horrors of the junta, known as the State Administration Council (SAC), to determine the worth of the U.N.’s word maze.
Released in June of this year for the 59th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), on the ‘Situation of human rights in Myanmar’, document A/HRC/59/57 (hereafter ‘59/57’) is in response to HRC Resolution 55/20 of April 2024 to “report on pathways to fulfil the aspirations of the people of Myanmar for human rights protection, accountability, democracy and a civilian government.”
Produced by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCRC) in Bangkok, 59/57 is a 15-page document coming in at just over 8,000 words, 3,000 admirably beneath the prolix elongated word lengths of other U.N. reports few people read.
It was researched between September 2024 and March of this year. It involved 126 in-person and online consultations with 36 groups with a total of 391 individuals “including at least 176 women.”
The report emphasizes its diversity, with a broad range of ethnic and religious communities included and “many different facets of society in Myanmar, including village leaders, students, lawyers, artists, teachers, displaced persons, political prisoners, military defectors and humanitarian, health and media workers. Consultations also involved human rights defenders, representatives of civil society organizations, including organizations promoting the rights of women and LGBTQI+ 1 persons, environmental researchers, members of the civil disobedience movement and trade unionists, among others.”
Some of the ‘case studies’ of pathways for ‘Good Governance’ include mention of the Karenni Interim Executive Council (KIEC), Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF), Chinland Council, and the New Mon State Party (NMSP). Human rights dynamics in these diverse areas are far more fluid and complex than a simple paragraph written by a group of foreigners in Bangkok can possibly convey.
Sustainable development gets seven paragraphs, including the pithy observation that “(t)he nexus between non-state armed groups and the illicit and extractive economy will need to be ended.” Easier said than done.
Paragraph 40 on the National Unity Government (NUG) could have been cut and pasted from their Facebook pages. Photocopied propaganda. The short mention of the Myanmar media includes this incisive observation: “Strong independent media will strengthen democracy and justice, promote reconciliation, and play an important role in healing society from decades of military-controlled disinformation.”
Quite right, but it’s not exactly a ‘hold the press’ observation.
In a shocking departure from the fundamentals of human rights documentation, 59/57 contains not a single quote from a Myanmar person. This analyst may come from a different human rights tradition, but failing to frontload the direct testimony of people at the heart of human rights tragedies is anathema.
At its heart the report is all about appropriation. It takes the lived experiences from Myanmar women, youth, civil society, and the media, and paraphrases them all to fit a set word count from OHCHR bureaucrats in Geneva.
The OHCHR subsequently produced a series of 16 online ‘cards’ for X (formerly Twitter) to compliment the report, which did apparently have quotes from people interviewed called “Voices of the Myanmar People.”
These were generic pictures and a short audio clip, for example an apparent Myanmar woman wearing thanaka standing in a rice field, or a mist shrouded town with the quote, “Another Myanmar is possible-rising from the ashes into a true federal democracy where every voice matters, and fear has no place.”
The suspiciously AI-generated audio voice in English adds to the general objectification. The Burmese language audio actually sounds human. These genuine voices are at counterpoint to the English language report which diminishes these voices.
Some of these Western curated homilies in 59/57, not the actual voices of Myanmar people, are so cliché ridden they could be considered for inclusion in the Cards Against Humanitarians, or Jaded Aid card game, that pillories modern aid and development work, and the overly serious people who work there.
In short, 59/57 is not just abbreviated generalities, it is at points actively dehumanizing. No wonder few people read these reports. And what discernable impact do they have? 59/57 reached its homogenized nadir with an obligatory panel discussion at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) on July 7, funded by the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC).
59/57 concludes with a long list of cogent and principled calls to support the progressive realization of the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar. They are arguably the strongest element of the report, and contain calls for the international community to support these important initiatives. Are they feasible in the current world?
The disunited U.N. human rights reporting system
This may be heresy to some activists, but could there be too many human rights reports? 59/57 emerged at a time of unprecedented funding crises in the U.N. Financial and material support for all the positive initiatives the report outlines won’t come from the West, not before the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was battered to death by the Trump administration, and certainly not after. Should the priority be these lukewarm reports from OHCHR or lifesaving aid to communities in Myanmar?
Consider the U.N. human rights system for Myanmar. There is of course OHCHR, both in Geneva and Bangkok, that has produced over 14 of these reports since the 2021 coup, according to the office head in Bangkok James Rodehaver during the FCCT panel in July.
Reports are presented to the U.N. HRC and to the General Assembly. These are indisputably important contributions to the history of human rights in Myanmar, from the perspective and through the lens of the U.N. system. It should be constantly remembered that documentation and reporting produced by a multiplicity of Myanmar rights groups are equally important and valid.
What is rarely acknowledged is actually the degree to which Myanmar groups work contribute to U.N. reports, especially for political prisoners, conflict dynamics and free speech issues. As does the Myanmar media. OHCHR, despite employing several Western experts in Bangkok and a number of Myanmar research personnel, simply doesn’t have the ground research systems in place.
Then there is the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Tom Andrews, who was appointed by the HRC in 2020.
In the 30 years of appointing rapporteurs, Andrews has interpreted his mandate in unprecedented ways, working with Yale University to produce not just the standard two reports a year on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, but a series of ‘Conference Room Papers’ on arms sales, how foreign banks assist military rule, the gender aspects of the human rights catastrophe, children, and the forthcoming report on people living with disabilities.
This is a remarkable and valuable body of work, and has been important in the imposition of sanctions and targeting the SAC’s finances. Yet given the overlap between the rapporteur and the OHCHR bureaucrats, who are essentially reporting on the same situation, does it make sense to duplicate output?
The UN80 and the reform process should seriously consider streamlining these efforts and finding cost saving in order to direct badly needed funding directly to Myanmar causes and not unoriginal factotums in an office in Bangkok.
And there is clear evidence that Andrews and his team are needling the SAC, when they respond to his recent ‘Interactive Dialogue’ in Geneva with this rebuttal: “the so-called Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar operates as a platform for reproducing misinformation from terrorist armed groups. Creating false hope and inflaming Myanmar’s diverse society could amount to abetting terrorism.”
The third report generating a human rights body is the Independent Investigative Mechanism of Myanmar (IIMM) created in 2019 to investigate and establish case files of serious atrocity crimes.
So far the mechanism, led by Nicholas Koumjian has engaged with 1,300 “partners and sources”, has interviewed 590 direct witnesses, and produced 120 packages of information and analyses. All of this information will only be released in the future when there is a credible justice initiative in a free and democratic Myanmar (with the death penalty off the table).
The June Bulletin of the IIMM stated that the U.N. “liquidity crisis and recently introduced austerity measures have significantly impacted the Mechanism, leading to substantial restrictions in staff and other resources. Additional cost-cutting measures recently introduced by the UN80 Initiative require the Mechanism to reduce staff positions funded by the 2026 regular budget by 20 percent.”
There is no doubt that the IIMM has been hard at work on important issues. But it also produces material that may never see the light of day, with Myanmar’s justice and accountability future so uncertain.
All of these three U.N. human rights bodies are doing important work, although 59/57 is not the sterling example, but is it too much? How can the U.N. justify so many reports with nebulous direct impact on violence and accountability inside Myanmar?
The leaning tower of unread reports
More egregious even than the U.N. is the Western donor funded report generating machine on Myanmar, from the embassies in Yangon to money squandering shibboleths like the Joint Peace Fund (JPF).
There are many reports produced that necessarily must remain internal and not distributed for security of systems of aid and the recipient populations in Myanmar. Numerous reports are produced on important issues such as health care, education, aid distribution, needs assessment, cash funding flows, women’s participation in key sectors, and the important systems of assisting so many people in need in Myanmar.
And then there is the pile of wasteful and pointless internal, secretive reports. There is a potential report to be written about the anthropology of Western report writing on conflict and political developments, especially since 2021.
Priorities change over time, but not the herd mentality of trending topics that produce volumes of open and secret and semi-secret reports.
Mapping ‘effective territorial control’, enumerating and classifying People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), Sagaing Forum dynamics, discovering ‘Anya’, top-down federalism and constitution writing, towns falling into resistance hands, more mapping territorial control, re-counting PDFs, bottom-up federalism, and yet more mapping control obsessions and how many PDFs are in that particular township and what they had for lunch.
Commissioning donors often comport themselves as imperious satraps, shaping narratives that do not correspond with the reality on the ground. They seek answers to questions they conjure, not what the situation requires.
Many of the commissioned groups, with knucklehead names like Envisage or COAR, produce asinine, inane and obvious reports mostly culled from open sources and rendered clandestine for their clients.
Whereas the contours of conflict, politics, and social ills are openly documented, discussed, and debated in the Myanmar media and in highly respectable research groups such as the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP – Myanmar).
There is also bi-weekly analysis from Burma News International (BNI) Myanmar Peace Monitor. And then there’s the research work of Nyan Linn Thit Analytica, Data for Myanmar, Center for Arakan Studies, Salween Institute, or Mosaic Myanmar and its stellar reporting on citizenship issues, especially on unofficial minorities.
There’s also the recent report from Women’s League of Burma (WLB) Speaking Truth to Power on patriarchal impunity. Consider why there is any need for piles of secretive reports to distribute amongst embassies in Yangon? Who exactly benefits from these reports?
Not average Myanmar people. This is a form of info-colonialism, and is a repugnantly corrupt racket.
There is also the question of what information can be ‘actionable.’ Myanmar’s cult of secrecy conjured by foreigners has always been juvenile and pathetic, but the post-coup conflict has sent it into hyperbolic overdrive.
So many researchers, analysts, and bureaucrats who avoided security issues or conflict dynamics prior to the coup, especially the peace industrial complex crowd, have since become retooled experts on warfare and weapons.
Some of the foreign mercenary researchers have never set foot inside Myanmar, let alone spent any time in conflict zones. Yet there is a voracious appetite for military minutiae from embassies. But what is a Western diplomat in Yangon going to do if the unit moving from Hpa-an to Kawkariek during Operation Aung Zeya Phase is not LIB 438 from Light Infantry Division 44 (LID 44), but gasp, it is elements of LIB 259 from LID 22!
Hold the phone! What do with the deeper insight that the deputy commander of the Battalion of Butalin (BOB) PDF prefers Corn Flakes to mohingya for breakfast? Details without meaning abound in these reports. And what are people in Yangon going to do? Call in an airstrike on LIB 259?
And then there is the unfortunate public distribution of cut-rate reports from international outfits who look at Myanmar through an ultra-clichéd lens.
The current front runner for the ‘Let Me Google That For You’ report writing award for 2025 is Cashing in on Conflict, released in March by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, which supplies the jaw dropping observation that “any intervention in (Myanmar’s) illicit economies will be at a considerable political cost to whatever government is in power, not only in regard to the power dynamics between the various political actors, but also due to the socio-economic reliance of local communities on the illicit economies for their livelihoods and survival.”
Just as white bread inane as 59/57’s illicit economy reflection. As redundant reports in English go, per the title, it’s simply indulgent and profiteering for donors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) alike. It is also only available in English, so not much use to millions of Myanmar people who have to survive the ravages of illicit economies. Talk about unread reports.
Just as the U.N. human rights system needs to consider ways to streamline reporting and documentation, so too the information ecosystem around Myanmar needs to be dramatically reformed. Priority should be given to increasing support for existing Myanmar organizations, and finding ways to foster more cooperation amongst research groups.
Excommunicating predominantly Western mercenary outfits who essentially steal Myanmar reality and transform it into make believe for dead-beat diplomats should also be a major step. As the Myanmar media fall further into decline, many of these groups will soon have no primary information to purloin.
No one should anticipate that Western donors would be willing to be this rational, or thoughtful. But consider that if the U.N. is willing to admit to generating reams of reports few people consume, then the Myanmar human rights, conflict and politics info-sphere should also reflect on their own reading habits.
DVB News
Pro-democracy student activist dies at Insein Prison after being denied medical treatment
/in NewsA human rights group called the Women’s Organization of Political Prisoners stated on Sunday that student activist Wutyi Aung, 25, died inside of Insein Prison in Yangon due to a lack of medical treatment for her condition on Sunday.
A source close to the family told DVB on the condition of anonymity that Wutyi Aung died during an epileptic seizure and that she had developed a brain tumour due to injuries sustained during interrogations.
Before her arrest in 2021, Wutyi Aung worked as a central executive committee member of the Dagon University Students’ Union. She was arrested with five other student pro-democracy activists in Yangon’s Kyauktada Township on Sept. 14, 2021.
A regime-controlled court sentenced her to three years in Insein Prison on a charge of sedition, or Section 505(a) of the Penal Code. The WOPP claimed that Wutyi Aung sustained an injury to her brain during “torture” from prison officials during an interrogation after her arrest.
Media reported that she was transferred to Daik-U Prison in Bago Region, which is located 88 miles (141 km) north of Yangon, on April 24, 2022. She was transferred back to Insein Prison on Oct. 24, 2022, and received an additional four-year sentence under Section 52(a) of Counter-Terrorism Law on June 27, 2023.
A family friend told DVB on the condition of anonymity that Wutyi Aung had been in poor health since her arrest and fell unconscious for 22 hours in 2022. Wutyi Aung required surgery four days before her death, but prison officials denied her access to a hospital outside of the prison.
The Political Prisoners Network Myanmar (PPNM) reported on Sunday that a political prisoner named Pyae Sone Aung, 44, died during a Martyrs’ Day event at Thaton Prison in Mon State on July 19. He had reportedly suffered from hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Pyae Sone Aung was convicted of sedition and terrorism and sentenced to six years in prison on April 5, 2022. The deaths of Wutyi Aung and Pyae Sone Aung brings the number of political prisoners who have died due to a lack of adequate medical treatment in prison this year to 17, according to the PPNM.
It has documented that at least 130 political prisoners have died in custody since the military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. The Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP) has documented that 22,184 people are still in detention for political activities, including opposing the 2021 coup.
DVB
Executive Director: Statement on UNOPS operations in Myanmar
/in News24 June 2025
Statement attributable to Jorge Moreira da Silva, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNOPS Executive Director, on visiting Myanmar
I have just completed a visit to Myanmar, where communities are still reeling from the severe earthquakes in March, which compounded the existing challenges of conflict, displacement, and severe humanitarian needs.
The earthquakes – Myanmar’s strongest in a century – killed an estimated 3,800 people and 5,100 injured. Women and girls comprised the majority of the casualties.
The disaster added another layer of suffering to an already struggling population. Even before the quake, more than 3.5 million were displaced by conflict. Myanmar is also one of the world’s deadliest countries for landmine and unexploded ordnance casualties.
Two months in, in the most affected areas, more than 6.3 million people remain in urgent need of assistance and protection.
I saw the extent of the damage and the needs in my visits to Sagaing and Mandalay.
UNOPS – through our partners and programmes – worked swiftly to mobilize $25 million and scaled up our response to reach half a million people with life-saving assistance.
My colleagues worked closely with the UN family, local, and other humanitarian partners to provide immediate assistance and support recovery efforts, including by delivering emergency shelters, access to clean water, and deploying infrastructure specialists for rapid damage assessments.
But the needs are immense. The World Bank estimates $10.97 billion in damages, with full reconstruction likely costing 2–3 times more.
As we shift gears from immediate relief to early recovery, my colleagues and partners need safe, sustained access, to prevent further suffering.
Debris removal is another key concern. Over 2.5 million tonnes of debris must be cleared, to pave the way for recovery.
UNOPS – along with the broader UN family and local responders – are working to restore essential services, rebuild livelihoods and support communities. This is a collective effort, and the role of our local partners is key.
I echo the calls from across the UN system for an end to violence. Recovery and reconstruction efforts should support Myanmar’s journey to peace and reconciliation. Protection of civilians must be a priority.
All recovery efforts need to put people at the front and centre.
They need to be inclusive, led by the communities that are impacted.
They need to be grounded in dignity, equity, and a shared commitment to building resilience.
UNOPS has the largest UN presence in Myanmar, with over 400 colleagues on the ground. We have supported the people of Myanmar for the past 30 years, offering practical solutions to help improve health, livelihoods, rural development and agriculture initiatives across the country.
UNOPS manages some of the largest development funds in Myanmar, including the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT), the Access to Health Fund, and the Global Fund, among others. My colleagues support humanitarian efforts to reduce the risk posed by mines.
UNOPS remains committed to supporting the people of Myanmar to build resilience and pursue solutions to the challenges they face, for a more stable and stronger future.
UN
Support Myanmar’s displaced communities through border-based aid and legal protection – Stop the Myanmar military junta’s atrocities fueling mass displacement
/in Member statementsJoint Statement on World Refugee Day
20 June 2025
Support Myanmar’s displaced communities through border-based aid and legal protection – Stop the Myanmar military junta’s atrocities fueling mass displacement
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, we call on the United Nations (UN), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Myanmar’s neighboring countries, and the wider international community to take immediate, concrete actions to address the dire humanitarian needs of Myanmar’s displaced communities through border-based channels and ensure legal protection for Myanmar refugees around the world.
Amid sudden and cruel aid cuts in 2025 by the United States (US) government, we call on the international community to restore and increase humanitarian aid and other forms of assistance for Myanmar’s displaced communities. This support must be provided directly through Myanmar’s trusted local frontline humanitarian responders to enable them to continue delivering much-needed aid to—and strengthening the resilience of—displaced communities through border-based channels. We call on Myanmar’s neighboring countries to support such border-based channels, both for aid delivery and for locally led initiatives to build sustainable solutions for Myanmar’s displaced communities.
We call on the entire international community, particularly Myanmar’s neighbors, to respect and fulfill their international obligation of non-refoulement, and end the arbitrary detention, deportations, pushbacks, and all other forced returns of Myanmar people. Under customary international law, every state must ensure the safety and protection of all persons fleeing violence and persecution. We urge the international community to reinstate and expand resettlement opportunities for Myanmar’s refugees, and provide them with temporary legal protection, including work permits and student visas; humanitarian aid; and access to essential services, such as healthcare and education.
To end the cycle of displacement, we further call on the international community to take concrete, coordinated actions to hold Min Aung Hlaing and the illegal military junta—the main perpetrators and exacerbators of mass displacement and the worsening polycrisis in Myanmar—accountable under international law. Without further delay, the international community must act to impede the junta’s capacity to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. We call on the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to swiftly grant the Prosecutor’s request and issue an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing without further delay.
Over 3.5 million people forcibly displaced internally by the Myanmar military
The Myanmar military junta’s relentless atrocity crimes continue to fuel mass displacement and worsen the resultant human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, both across the country and beyond its borders. Since its illegal coup attempt in 2021, the junta’s brutality has internally displaced more than 3.2 million people countrywide—with the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) more than doubling since 2023. Prior to the coup attempt, the Myanmar military had already forced an estimated 328,000 people into protracted displacement—predominantly in Rakhine, Kachin, Chin, Shan, Mon, and Karen States. These figures are likely gross underestimations given the significantly higher numbers reported by community-based organizations (CBOs) and local humanitarian responders with direct access to the affected populations.
Since its failed coup, the junta has launched more than 5,000 airstrikes—many of which have targeted IDP camps, schools, medical facilities, religious sites, and other places where IDPs seek refuge. In 2024, the junta conducted 104% more airstrikes compared to 2023. Moreover, during the last six months, the junta has rapidly escalated paramotor bombings, artillery shelling, drone attacks, and other forms of aerial attacks targeting IDP communities. These escalating attacks are clear violations of international humanitarian law and have forced IDP communities to flee repeatedly. As the junta teeters on the brink of collapse, these attacks are part of the junta’s ongoing collective punishment of the Myanmar people’s grassroots revolution to end military tyranny, establish federal democracy, and build sustainable peace.
On 28 March 2025, a massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated central Myanmar, killing more than 4,400 people and injuring 11,300 more. More than 200,000 people were internally displaced, forced to survive in makeshift tents and temporary shelters, leaving them extremely vulnerable to aftershocks, extreme heat, and rainstorms. As the Myanmar people have been caring for each other and supporting emergency relief and recovery efforts through people-to-people solidarity, the junta has weaponized, manipulated, and obstructed aid while simultaneously ramping up its lethal attacks on civilians, causing even more displacement and deepening the suffering of affected communities. Since the quake, the junta has conducted over 982 airstrikes and artillery attacks, killing at least 608 people—including in Sagaing and Mandalay Regions, the epicenter of the quake.
In conjunction with its lethal aerial and ground attacks on civilians, the military junta continues to fuel mass displacement through its forced conscription campaign, which has forced thousands of young people to flee to resistance-controlled areas or across international borders to evade serving the murderous junta and save their own lives. Junta personnel have disproportionately targeted members of LGBTQIA+ community for forced conscription—forcing them to flee, face financial extortion, or go into hiding to avoid conscription—further marginalizing LGBTQIA+ persons in Myanmar.
Myanmar refugees continue to face unlawful expulsion and deplorable conditions
Protection remains far from guaranteed for the millions of Myanmar people seeking safety from the Myanmar military’s violence across international borders. Since the failed coup, hundreds of thousands more people have sought refuge from the junta’s atrocities in neighboring countries and beyond. Horrifically, forced returns to Myanmar—including deportations, pushbacks, and other forms of expulsion—have become commonplace, in blatant violation of customary international law—including by Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand. The undeniable reality is that any Myanmar person deported into the hands of the Myanmar military junta will suffer irreparable harm, including being forcibly conscripted, tortured, or used as forced labor, human shields, and landmine sweepers for the junta.
Notably, the Indian government has carried out a systematic crackdown against Myanmar refugees, arbitrarily detaining and unlawfully expelling them, while also loudly proclaiming India’s policy and practice of pushing back Myanmar people fleeing the junta’s violence and persecution. In early May, the Indian navy violently forced around 40 Rohingya refugees into the Andaman Sea, completely disregarding the binding principle of non-refoulement and demonstrating utter contempt for the refugees’ lives and safety.
Furthermore, in 2025, massive sudden and callous aid cuts by government donors—particularly the US—have severely exacerbated the dire humanitarian needs of the millions of Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and other neighboring countries. At the same time, Myanmar refugees continue to face hate speech, discrimination, and marginalization, with neighboring countries systematically denying refugees’ access to legal protection, employment, education, healthcare, and other basic essential services.
In Bangladesh, the humanitarian crisis in Rohingya refugee camps has reached unprecedented levels. There, more than 1 million Rohingya refugees continue to face overcrowding, fires, severe food shortages, insufficient and extremely limited healthcare, violence, fear of kidnapping, and heavy restrictions on movement, among other deplorable, inhuman conditions. Representing more than 75% of the refugee population, Rohingya women and children are especially vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, human trafficking, and the severe lack of educational opportunities. Major aid cuts have put the health and safety of Rohingya refugees in extreme jeopardy, highlighting an urgent need for the US and other government donors to restore and increase funding for food rations and other lifesaving assistance in the camps.
Every year, thousands of Rohingya embark on extremely dangerous land and sea crossings to escape genocidal persecution in Myanmar and the aforementioned unlivable conditions in Bangladesh. 2024 was the deadliest year for Rohingya sea/river journeys since 2015. Of particularly grave concern is the recent announcement by the Bangladeshi government in March 2025 that the Myanmar military junta confirmed that 180,000 Rohingya refugees may be repatriated. The international community has an obligation to intervene to protect Rohingya from forced repatriation, given the junta’s ongoing genocide against them, and bolster international support for their safety and protection, including through resettlement. On 30 September 2025, at the UN’s High-level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar, the international community must develop a clear roadmap with concrete actions to guarantee the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of Rohingya; the restoration of their citizenship; and their protection. This action plan, in consultation with the National Unity Government, the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army, and Rohingya community leaders, must ensure the recognition of the Rohingya—including their identity as Rohingya—not only as one of Myanmar’s ethnic groups but also as an equal political stakeholder in the country’s new federal democracy.
Along the Thailand-Myanmar border, 110,000 refugees—mainly Karen and Karenni people—across nine refugee camps are also suffering immeasurable hardship as a result of massive US aid cuts, major reductions in food rations, the suspension of the US’s refugee resettlement program, and the lack of access to livelihoods in Thailand. Food rations for children under five years old have been cut to a meager five US cents per day, and those over five years old now receive only eight US cents per day. Compounding the refugees’ existing hardships, this year’s US aid cuts have caused the deaths of multiple refugees in Thailand—including at least two women and two children—by forcing organizations providing lifesaving medical assistance to cease operations and/or causing patients to avoid seeking medical attention due to the extreme financial burden of being transferred to and treated at local hospitals.
In Malaysia, more than 180,000 Myanmar refugees, including Chin and Rohingya, face real risks of arbitrary arrest, detention, and refoulement by the Malaysian government, while also enduring little to no access to healthcare, education, or formal employment. Malaysian immigration authorities have raided religious gatherings, churches, and schools run by refugee organizations, as well as enforced “lockdowns” of apartment blocks and areas where Myanmar refugees live. During the last year, Malaysian authorities have detained thousands of Myanmar refugees, including around 5,000 Chin people, and turned back boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya. Since the illegal coup attempt, an estimated 12,000 Chin refugees have been deported to Myanmar from Malaysia, according to Chin refugee organizations.
IDPs’ dire humanitarian needs exacerbated by escalating junta attacks and massive aid cuts
The humanitarian catastrophe for IDPs in Myanmar has also reached unprecedented levels. Millions of IDPs continue to be in extremely desperate need of food, medicine, clean water, shelter, and hygiene supplies. Amid total economic collapse caused by the junta’s widespread destruction of the country, IDPs have lost their indigenous communities’ way of life and now struggle to earn livelihoods. Across the country, IDPs are also suffering from food insecurity; severe weather conditions, such as devastating floods during monsoon season; nearly no access to education or healthcare; a dearth of sanitation supplies; sexual and gender-based violence; and compounded physical, mental, and emotional trauma with extremely limited access to psychosocial support.
Repeated targeting by the junta’s aerial attacks has forced IDPs to flee multiple times, severely straining their capacities to recover and rebuild. The impacts on women and children are particularly dire, as forced displacement—both within Myanmar and across its borders—has caused them to lose access to nutrition, sanitation, healthcare, and education, as well as become vulnerable to human trafficking. As a result, pregnant women have suffered miscarriages, childbirth-related deaths, and other devastating health outcomes.
In Rakhine State, the military junta is using starvation as a weapon of genocide against 145,000 Rohingya IDPs—who are held in junta-controlled internment camps without freedom of movement and forced to be completely dependent on external humanitarian aid. As of late April 2025, 70% of the 112,000 Rohingya IDPs in Sittwe camps were facing starvation. Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK said, “Starvation has replaced bullets as the main tool of genocide against the Rohingya. US cuts in humanitarian aid are assisting the Burmese military in their genocidal policies of using starvation as a weapon against us.” Moreover, the junta continues to intentionally prevent any humanitarian aid from reaching Rakhine State—as it has for other states and regions where it conducts bombing and shelling attacks. The deliberate denial of aid is a war crime and must be met with swift international condemnation and action.
Countrywide, the junta continues to weaponize, obstruct, and exploit humanitarian aid for its advantage—limiting operational access for aid agencies, blocking transit routes, seizing relief supplies, and arresting and attacking aid workers, medics, community-based responders, and local volunteers. It could not be clearer that any aid channeled through the military will absolutely fail to reach the IDPs in the most urgent need.
Border-based aid channels have proven to be the most reliable, effective means of reaching displaced populations in need, especially in junta-attacked areas. Local and ethnic CBOs possess deep knowledge of and experience in these areas; have earned the trust of local communities; collect and provide accurate, up-to-date information about crisis conditions; and deliver lifesaving assistance rapidly, safely, and efficiently where it is needed most. As one Karen humanitarian worker in eastern Dawei explained, “The only lifeline for many IDPs in our areas is through cross-border aid and local ethnic-based service providers. The international community must stop expecting that aid routed through junta-controlled mechanisms will save lives. It doesn’t. We’ve seen firsthand how it gets blocked, stolen, or used to control populations. Instead, invest in those already working on the ground with trust, integrity, and access.”
Calls for coordinated, collective actions
The Myanmar military is the root cause of the country’s worsening human rights and humanitarian crisis. Its relentless campaign of terror has displaced millions, both internally and across borders, as people flee in search of safety. Many of Myanmar’s displaced people feel invisible and forgotten; as one IDP woman—a Civil Disobedience Movement healthcare worker who now lives in a Mon resistance-controlled area—explained, “We didn’t flee because we wanted to. We fled because staying meant death. In my native village, I used to treat patients until the junta labeled me a traitor.”
The world must stop ignoring the plight of the Myanmar people. The world must take concerted efforts and coordinated actions not only to end the military’s atrocities and hold the perpetrators accountable, but also to robustly support the Myanmar people’s resilience, determination, and efforts to build a federal democratic union free from the military tyranny and return home with safety, dignity, and preparedness to rebuild their communities. Solidarity with the people of Myanmar means ensuring their voices are centered in policymaking, program development, and implementation; supporting their leadership; and ensuring the protection of their rights. The international community must increase its support for the diverse skills, knowledge, and capacities of Myanmar’s IDPs and refugees by uplifting their voices, heeding their calls, and strengthening their resilience as active peacebuilders and changemakers who are building sustainable solutions for their communities.
On this World Refugee Day, we call on the UN, ASEAN, Myanmar’s neighboring countries, and the wider international community to:
Signed by:
• Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
• Chin Human Rights Organization
• Human Rights Foundation of Monland
• Kachin Women’s Association Thailand
• Karen Human Rights Group
• Karen Peace Support Network
• Karenni Civil Society Network
• Karenni National Women’s Organization
• Progressive Voice
• RW Welfare Society
For more information, please contact:
• Saw Albert, Karen Human Rights Group; albert@khrg.org
• Maw Pray Myar, Karenni National Women’s Organization; knwobranch@gmail.com
• Nai Aue Mon, Human Rights Foundation of Monland; auemon@rehmonnya.org
• Razia Sultana, RW Welfare Society; rsmimi15@gmail.com
• Khin Ohmar, Progressive Voice; info@progressive-voice.org
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