Displacement crisis in southeastern Myanmar requires local humanitarian response, Karen groups say

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Community-based organisations suggest that the number of IDPs is double the estimates provided by UN agencies, whose access to the region continues to be restricted by the junta

Data recently released by Karen community-based organisations indicates that the number of people displaced in southeastern Myanmar since the 2021 coup may be more than double the figures previously provided by the UN.

Representatives of the Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN) said on October 27 that more than 347,500 people had been forced to flee their homes by military offensives throughout the seven districts of Kawthoolei—a predominantly ethnic Karen territory that includes all of Karen State and parts of Mon State and Bago and Tanintharyi regions. 

“Our members are working very closely with the IDPs [internally displaced persons] on the ground. That’s how we have these details,” KPSN’s Saw Lay Ka Paw told Myanmar Now.

On Monday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that there were a total of 169,700 IDPs in the region, including all of Karen and Mon states, Tanintharyi and eastern Bago—an area much larger than that described by KPSN. 

An OCHA representative did not respond to Myanmar Now’s specific inquiry regarding the discrepancy in IDP numbers, but said on October 28 that the agency was “staying and delivering [aid services] despite serious access challenges and funding shortfalls in Myanmar, including in the country’s Southeast.”

KPSN map from October 27 outlining internal displacement in Karen areas since the coup
UN OCHA map indicating nationwide levels of displacement, published on October 31

Duncan McArthur, Myanmar programme director for The Border Consortium—an alliance of international humanitarian organisations working with conflict-affected populations from the region in question—confirmed that the number of displaced “could be double OCHA’s estimate,” citing documentation from multiple groups on the ground. 

“Estimating IDP numbers is always difficult, especially for those who are dispersed and not in camps,” he told Myanmar Now. “However, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that OCHA is grossly underestimating the scale and distribution of internal displacement in Myanmar.” 

The data has raised questions regarding which organisations have the access necessary to distribute aid to the region’s displaced people amid what KPSN says is an ongoing “humanitarian emergency.” 

In an online briefing last week, the network pointed out that since the February 2021 coup, Karen community-based organisations—particularly Thai border-based groups—had delivered US$8.7m in food support to these IDPs, but that $17m more was required in order to meet their needs over the next year.

Naw K’nyaw Paw, general secretary of the Karen Women’s Organisation, described this aid structure as decentralised, involving coordination between local networks and the emergency response committees of the Karen National Union, an ethnic administrative body opposed to military rule. She noted that over the past 30 years, $32m worth of food—mostly rice—had been provided to some 1.7m people in conflict-affected areas through these mechanisms, “without benefitting the previous military regimes or the [current junta].” 

However, this aid delivery system has been “largely ignored by international donors,” she said, adding that half of the funding for food assistance since the coup came from private patrons. 

Several UN agencies have come under criticism from rights advocates and civil society organisations for carrying out aid operations in Myanmar under the oversight of the junta. It is an approach which, opponents argue, lends legitimacy to the coup regime and does not allow access to the large displaced populations outside of military-controlled areas.

UN accessibility to most of southeastern Myanmar was categorised as “difficult” or “very difficult” in the mid-year update on the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan, compiled by OCHA. 

Operating in conflict areas “remains challenging due to the de-facto authorities denying travel authorizations for large-scale operations in areas outside their control,” the June report said. 

In OCHA’s statement to Myanmar Now, a representative said that they had provided assistance to 500,000 people in southeastern Myanmar during the first half of the year, but did not offer further details about the recipients or the type of aid. 

The agency acknowledged that “access restrictions are preventing us from reaching everyone who needs support” and that they would “engage with all stakeholders to lift access constraints that are delaying support to people in need.”

Most food assistance that was distributed under the Humanitarian Response Plan during the same period went to 2.2m people largely belonging to “vulnerable populations other than IDPs” in urban areas, particularly Yangon. 

Only 22 percent of the Humanitarian Response Plan’s massive $826m budget had been raised as of Monday, according to OCHA. However, local aid providers have pointed out that the implementing agencies’ lack of access to communities outside of junta-controlled territories is likely to continue even if the funding targets are met.

“The majority of the IDPs are in the areas of the opposition [to the Myanmar military], and the UN Country Team needs permission from the military to deliver aid,” another KPSN representative, Saw Alex Htoo, said, calling on international institutions to “re-strategise” and include border-based groups. 

“Delivery of humanitarian aid from Yangon faces a lot of limitations. Aid delivered through cities won’t reach these people.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on the afternoon of October 31 to include UN OCHA’s newest data, which was released after initial publication. It suggests that 7,100 more people in the region were displaced since the agency’s previous October 1 report.

Myanmar Now News

Children Targeted by the Junta

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The human rights landscape in Myanmar has been rapidly deteriorating as the military junta expands their reign of terror, targeting the most vulnerable and innocent, including children. Across the last month, young children and infants have been killed and seriously wounded in the crossfire of the violence waged by the Myanmar Army. The regime continues to perpetrate widespread and systematic assaults with full fledged impunity. 

Heavy firing launched by the military junta in Loikaw Township, Karenni State led to an eight-year old boy seriously injured by shrapnel that struck his thigh. His parents were also hit by the shelling. Witnesses said incidents like this are ‘happening all over the country.’ Another child was killed in Loikaw township following junta shelling civilian areas, as reported by the Karenni Human Rights Group. 

Civilians are being directly targeted as was the case in the aerial strike that took place in Kachin State which killed at least 80 innocent civilians. Among those dead were young people, musicians, families, including children, who were celebrating the founding of the Kachin Independence Organisation on 23 October 2022. Those who survived, many of whom are in critical condition, are being denied medical assistance as soldiers block routes needed to transport civilians to hospitals and nearby facilities. This airstrike was the worst one committed by the Burma Army since they unlawfully attempted their coup on1 February 2021. 

Nearly 200 children have had their lives cruelly taken from them since the assault on democracy nearly two years ago. Hundreds of thousands of children compromise the rising number of internally displaced people (IDPs) across the country as the humanitarian crisis worsens and is plagued by a lack of accessible pathways for food and medicine. At the end of September 2022, horror bombarded a local community in Let Yat Kone Village, Sagaing Region following a series of air and ground attacks which claimed the lives of eleven school children. Following the horrific attack, over a dozen of the children were missing. Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, has warned that the attacks on children by the junta risk a ‘lost generation’. 

The military junta has given no indication of any halt in their attacks. The ongoing assaults against children are in stark violation of international norms, law and treaties which Myanmar is bound by. And yet, these assaults are taking place without enough action from the international community who must go beyond their words of condemnation. The UN Child Rights Committee has urged ‘swift action’ but also failed to follow up and put pressure on stakeholders with the power to hold the junta to account. 

Worryingly, children’s rights based groups including Save the Children and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have shared disapproving sentiments of the military’s action but once again, have not taken the steps necessary to protect the lives of endangered children in Myanmar. 

The dangers that people in Myanmar face must be taken seriously, particularly children who are routinely targeted in conflict by the military junta. 

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THE ATTACK IN KACHIN STATE MUST PROMPT UN SECURITY COUNCIL’S URGENT ACTION AGAINST MYANMAR MILITARY JUNTA

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UN Security Council must stop deferring to ASEAN and take urgent action

[28 October 2022] The UN Security Council should stop evading its responsibility to act to stop the Myanmar military’s war of terror by continuing to defer to ASEAN’s desultory Five-Point Consensus, Progressive Voice, Kachin Women’s Association Thailand and Women’s League of Burma said today.

In the face of the Myanmar military’s mounting atrocities against millions of civilians, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ decision to retain the failed Five-Point Consensus is yet another indication that the UN Security Council must take concrete action by adopting a resolution on Myanmar, the groups said.

On 23 October, the Myanmar military killed nearly 100 people and injured over 100 in Hpakant, Kachin State, when it targeted a music festival that was attended by around a thousand people who were celebrating the founding of an ethnic revolutionary organization, the Kachin Independence Organisation. The military refused to allow those injured access to treatment at a nearby hospital.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers concluded the special meeting on Thursday, which assessed the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus. Despite junta’s total contempt for the Five-Point Consensus, ASEAN reaffirmed its importance, opting to hold on to the failed Consensus.

In responding to the atrocity crimes in Kachin State, Moon Nay Li of Kachin Women’s Association Thailand said: “The UN Security Council must act with utmost urgency in response to the Myanmar military’s airstrikes in Hpakant, Kachin State, that has killed nearly 100 people.

“If the Security Council had acted decisively, we may not be in this situation where we mourn the loss of our friends, family, and colleagues. The lives of Myanmar people are at even greater risk as the Myanmar military continues to target civilians indiscriminately as they commit atrocity crimes.

“The Council must immediately exercise its power to pass a resolution on Myanmar that imposes a global arms embargo and targeted economic sanctions against the military and its associates. It is crucial that the Council refers the situation of Myanmar to the International Criminal Court to end its killing spree, and to hold perpetrators accountable for the genocide committed against the Rohingya and war crimes and crimes against humanity against other ethnic minorities.”

In consideration of the inevitable veto of a resolution by Russia and China on the Security Council that continue to provide weapons to the Myanmar military, the groups called for the resolution to be brought to the UN General Assembly for an open debate and vote.

Khin Ohmar of Progressive Voice said: “The Security Council and ASEAN must acknowledge that their inaction has emboldened the military, sending a signal that it could commit a massacre without facing any consequences. The timing of the massacre — just days before the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ special meeting and the Special Rapporteur’s reporting to the UN General Assembly — is blatant evidence of the junta’s defiance against condemnations, which have proven to be empty. The decision by ASEAN Foreign Ministers to retain the Five-Point Consensus only further reinforces this message.

“In failing to act decisively, ASEAN is only working in favor of the illegal junta, shielding any effective action against this junta by the Security Council. This opens ASEAN up to becoming complicit in the junta’s atrocity crimes, including in the massacre in Hpakant.

“Instead of addressing the crisis in Myanmar, the UN are partnering with the very perpetrators who committed the massacre in Kachin State. The UN cannot even name the perpetrators of these crimes in a statement that condemns this act of terror in Hpakant, despite them standing accused of serious international crimes before the world’s highest courts.

“You cannot solve the crisis in Myanmar by shaking hands with war criminals who created this crisis, while neglecting the will of the people of Myanmar.”

Naw Hser Hser of Women’s League of Burma said: “Lending further legitimacy to the junta by inviting them to summits, meetings and other platforms will only lead to more deaths and displacements on the ground as the junta becomes ever more emboldened to increasingly carry out these airstrikes.

“While the UN are signing MoUs and Letters of Agreement with the junta who are responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe, local grassroots networks are the ones responding immediately to overcome immense challenges the people are facing on the ground and to provide aid to those most vulnerable and most in need, including along the Myanmar’s borders.

“Local humanitarian responders in Myanmar are resourceful, knowledgeable experts in responding to situations of conflict and have the trust of local communities. What they need is practical support with flexible funding from the UN and the international community to continue to carry out their invaluable life-saving work.

“The solution lies with the people of Myanmar, not the military junta. If the international community, the UN and ASEAN are serious about resolving the crisis in Myanmar and ensuring peace and stability in the region, they must stand with the Myanmar people to end the military’s atrocity crimes and hold them accountable.”

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During 17 – 21 October, Progressive Voice, Women’s League of Burma and Adelina Kamal, former Executive Director of ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), joined by Professor Hugo Slim in New York spoke to UN Member States and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, urging them to support local humanitarian responders in Myanmar. During the trip, Progressive Voice and Women’s League of Burma also urged members of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on Myanmar. The groups also visited Washington DC to meet with lawmakers and the US Agency for International Development.

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 THE JUNTA WIPED US OUT AGAIN 

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 Socio-economic impacts post-coup in Southeastern Burma 

Burma is a country that is vast in natural resources, diversity and culture. Its greatest strengths have always been the innovativeness of its people, their resilience and their courage. It is also a place that has been embroiled in decades of civil war in which there remains one sole entity who is responsible for the majority of lives lost and changed forever by their brutality. The Burma Army has committed grave crimes against civilians with long-held impunity for generations. 

At pivotal moments in history, the military has had opportunities to reverse course and work with civilians, rights defenders and the international community to bring peace to the nation. However, in pursuit of power and profits, the Burma Army has consistently taken paths that solely advance themselves and their interests, rather than those which would bring prosperity and stability to people. 

On 1 February 2021, the Burmese military once again proved that they are not capable of meaningful dialogue, peace or adhering to the terms of a free and fair election. The reasons for the attempted coup are nothing but excuses by the junta who have failed to provide any substantive evidence of their allegations. Their decision to rob the people of a free and fair election was planned without consideration for the electoral system and democratic principles. Denying the landslide victory and subsequent governance of the National League for Democracy (NLD) has brought nothing but instability and chaos. 

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The Human Rights Foundation of Monland Releases a New Report: “The junta wiped us out again”: Socio-economic impacts post-coup in Southeastern Burma.”

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For Immediate Release

The Human Rights Foundation of Monland Releases a New Report: “The junta wiped us out again”: Socio-economic impacts post-coup in Southeastern Burma.”

26 October 2022

Today, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), releases our latest report: “The junta wiped us out again”: Socio-economic impacts post-coup in Southeastern Burma. Our findings confirm that the Burma Army has deliberately derailed prospects for democracy in the country and has embarked on a campaign of targeted and wide-spread abuse in an attempt to terrorize the population into submission. Their volatile and unlawful actions have resulted in widespread displacement resulting in a refugee crisis alongside crippling social and economic impacts on innocent civilians. In areas of Mon State, Karen State and Tanintharyi region, the military junta has continued to act with impunity. HURFOM condemns the ongoing attacks and calls for immediate international intervention. 

Since the attempted coup on 1 February 2021, HURFOM has been documenting the human rights violations committed against local people by various battalions of the Burma Army. Through focus groups and interviews conducted by HURFOM for this report, witnesses and victims of various crimes perpetrated by the junta have voiced feelings of insecurity and fears of their future. Economic mismanagement has led to inflation, which has priced basic goods including cooking oil and rice, outside of the financial means of local people. Electricity blackouts are common, leaving many people without power for hours during the day. Compounded with limited work opportunities and ongoing bribery and extortion by the regime, civilians across Southeastern Burma are worried about their futures. 

Our findings include evidence of serious disregard for civilian safety and their livelihoods by the military junta. Education has been interrupted, risking a generation of children growing up illiterate and unable to provide for themselves. Young people have been forced to abandon their studies or seek opportunities abroad. As the junta unleashes their campaign of terror, resistance movements are adapting and using various tools and organizing methods to overcome them. 

The uptick in violence has also led to protracted displacement. HURFOM observed rising numbers of displacement as the presence of the Burma Army has led to more villagers fleeing to safer areas in search of refuge and protection. Across HURFOM’s documentation, it is evident that the junta is using the same policies of scorched earth, divide and rule as well as the four cuts strategy  to deploy their villainous acts.

The international community must be inspired by the will and power of the people and act with integrity and moral conviction on their behalf. There have been multiple calls by civil society organizations who are calling for diplomats and global actors to use their power to protect the lives of those inside Burma. It is imperative that they respond beyond words of condemnation but with actions that will finally make clear to the Burma Army once and for all that they are not above the rule of law and will be punished at the highest international level. 

Media Contact
Nai Aue Mon, HURFOM Program Director
Email: auemon@gmail.com 
Signal: +66 86 167 9741

HURFOM was founded by exiled pro-democracy students from the 1988 uprisings, recent activists and Mon community leaders and youth. Its primary objective is the restoration of democracy, human rights and genuine peace in Burma. HURFOM is a non-profit organization, and all its members are volunteers with a shared vision for peace in the country.