Thailand’s first aid convoy arrives in Myanmar

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The foreign ministry is sending aid to 20,000 residents of war-torn Kayin state.

Updated March 25, 2024, 09:08 a.m. ET.

Thailand’s government started aid deliveries to Myanmar on Monday along a newly developed humanitarian corridor to assist civilians affected by fighting.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with the Thai and Myanmar Red Cross Societies, sent aid in an eight-truck convoy across Mae Sot-Myawaddy Friendship Bridge No. 2. 

Four thousand packages were delivered to three villages in Kayin state, namely Na Bu in Kawkareik district, and Thar Ma Nya and Paingkyon in Hpa-An district.

The aid will benefit around 20,000 people in towns selected in the pilot project for their acute need, according to Thai Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow.

“We hope very much to see peace in Myanmar, internal issues certainly will be resolved by Myanmar themselves,” Sihasak said at the aid ceremony in Mae Sot. “We want every side, all sides, to overcome their differences so that we can be led to reconciliation and peace in the near future.”

Members of the Thai Red Cross pose with Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow on March 25, 2024..JPG
Members of the Thai Red Cross pose with Thailand’s Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow (L) outside the Mae Sot Customs House by Friendship Bridge No. 2 on March 25, 2024. (Kiana Duncan/RFA)

Sihasak previously expressed hope that the aid initiative could help open the way for dialogue between the civilian National Unity Government, ethnic armed organizations and the junta, which seized power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup d’état. 

However, he declined to comment Monday on which groups controlled the territory to which aid would be delivered. 

“I don’t want to look at the issue as to which area is controlled by which side, let’s talk about the people who are affected. If there is an area where there is a need, then we have to take a look.” he said. “We are ready to work with everyone, as long as the focus is the people receiving the humanitarian aid.”

Renewed fighting fuels need

Some non-junta stakeholders have criticized the limited scope of the assistance. However, a resurgence in fighting has increased the number of people in need of aid, whatever the amount.

After the anti-junta Karen National Liberation Army launched an assault on military camps in Myanmar’s Myawaddy township on March 7, civilians were left displaced and in need of both food and medicine, according to a spokesperson for the Karen Department of Health and Welfare, declining to be named for security reasons. 

As many as 30 people were critically injured during battles, and at least three have died from serious injuries in southern Myawaddy and Kawkareik townships. Nearly 3,000 new internally displaced people have been identified since March 7, but the number is likely higher, the spokesperson said.

She added that many of them are suffering from diarrhea and fever because they are drinking river water due to the heat.

Skirmishes and humanitarian issues are also increasingly affecting Thailand’s border. Large numbers of migrants fleeing conscription laws enacted by the junta fled through Thai borders, the largest number being arrested in Tak province in February.

On Tuesday, 40 junta soldiers fled into Thailand’s Umphang district, about 180 kilometers (112 miles) south of Mae Sot, according to the Karen Information Center.The week-long battle with the Karen National Liberation Army caused Thailand to close its border crossing near Paing Ka Hlaing village in Kayin state.

Engaging all parties?

Despite the foreign affairs ministry’s claims to engage all parties, some stakeholders don’t feel an adequate effort has been made.

Aid would be handed off to community leaders and the district authority in recipient villages, Sihasak said. 

Drivers in a truck marked for Paingkyon village begin their journey outside Thailand's Customs House on March 25, 2024..JPG
Drivers in a truck marked for Paingkyon village begin their journey outside Thailand’s Customs House on March 25, 2024. (Kiana Duncan/RFA)

But the National Unity Government’s Ministry of Humanitarian Assistance, along with ethnic armed groups, has drafted an alternative proposal that it said would make Thailand’s aid delivery plan more effective. It proposed instead to work with local organizations to reach areas controlled by ethnic armed groups.

However, the National Unity Government – a shadow government formed by members of the civil administration ousted in the coup – says there has been no direct communication from Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the plan, proposed ahead of a seminar in Bangkok earlier this month on the situation in Myanmar. 

“For effective delivery of such aid to the most needy people, close cooperation with EROs [ethnic resistance organizations] and NUG [National Unity Government] will be of paramount importance,” said Win Myat Aye, the minister of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Management. 

“Given Thailand’s status as a pivotal neighboring country to Myanmar, coordinated and collaborative efforts with NUG and EROs are imperative to resolve the ongoing crisis through diplomatic channels.”

Thai authorities have reached out to one or two ethnic armed groups, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the situation. He declined to name them.

The Karen National Union, running parts of Kayin state, declined to comment on whether Thailand had discussed the delivery with them.

Lalita Hanwong, a historian at Kasetsart University and advisor to the Thai government on national security issues, said the humanitarian corridor was a positive development.

“I believe that the security sector and the Thai government have thoroughly considered this matter,” she told BenarNews. “What Thailand should do next is to initiate negotiations with minorities, especially those in areas bordering Thailand, to ensure sustainable assistance.

“Thailand’s long-term plan should prepare for various scenarios that could arise with Myanmar, such as fragmentation into multiple groups like the Shan, Karen, and Mon.”

RFA News

Human Rights Situation weekly update (March 15 to 21, 2024)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Mar 15 to 21, 2024

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in the Sagaing Region, Shan State, Kayin State, Kachin State, Rakhine State, and Chin State from March 15th to 21st. The head of the Prison who works under the Military threatened and tortured the political prisoners at Daik-U Prison from the Bago Region, Insein Prison from Yangon Region, Gangaw Police Station from Magway Region, and Magway Prison. Military Junta and village administrators are forcing civilians of the full age to get Military Service, blackmailing, and arresting by using various ways.

Over 60 civilians died, and over 60 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. 3 underaged children died, and 6 were injured when the Military Junta committed abuses. The military Junta forced Rohingyas to protest the Arakan Army-AA.

Myanmar junta returns bodies of Rohingya conscripts to families

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Police claim they stepped on landmines, while escaping forced training.

The bodies of seven conscripts forced to join Myanmar’s junta army were returned to their families, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday. The recruits were members of the Rohingya community, which has been frequently persecuted by the military for its heritage and Islamic faith.

A resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons said police told families of the dead they had died while trying to run away.

“Seven bodies were brought in a police truck,” he said. “When the family members asked the people who sent the bodies [how they died], they were told the men were running away during training and were killed by landmines.”

Five of the deceased are from Thea Chaung Let Tha Mar Kone village, one is from Thet Kay Pyin village and another is from Thea Chaung village, according to residents.

“The bodies have no limbs, but I don’t know whether they have bullet wounds or not,” he said. 

Military training is being administered to the Rohingya recruits at the junta army’s Regional Command Headquarters based in Sittwe.

Other villages reported bodies of Rohingya members of the community have also been returned in a similar manner, but RFA has not been able to verify these claims. Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein did not respond to enquiries about how the men died.

Since Myanmar’s conscription laws were announced by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 10, troops nationwide have attempted to press-gang large numbers into the dwindling military. 

The People’s Military Service Law requires men and women aged 18 to 35 to serve in the junta’s armed forces for two years. Many young people have rejected the call to duty by hiding, fleeing the country and protesting.

In Bago region, mass arrests of young people have sparked fears they may be used to bolster the military. But further west in Rakhine state, the Rohingya victims of the 2017 genocide have faced harsher recruitment methods with the junta threatening to kill them if they refuse to serve.

Since February, village administrators have recruited Rohingya living in Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe for junta-led military training. Administrators have forced between 20 and 30 people per village and many more from internally placed persons camps to join the training, residents said.

Threatened and beaten, the methods have drawn at least 1,000 Rohingya from Sittwe, Buthidaung, Kyaukpyu and Maungdaw townships in Rakhine state into the army, according to one activist requesting anonymity for safety reasons. One video published on March 10 showed Rohingya trainees under army command. 

The junta-controlled Myanma Alinn Daily newspaper denied Muslims were being targeted for recruitment in Rakhine state in a Feb. 28 article. 

An Arakan Army statement issued on Wednesday alleged junta troops intentionally sent Rohingya to areas with heavy fighting. The group claimed to have also found and published photos of Rohingya soldiers’ bodies in junta bases it later captured in Rathedaung earlier this week.

RFA News

More Than 30 Civilians Killed by Myanmar Junta in Sagaing: Volunteers

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More than 30 civilians have been killed in fighting between Myanmar’s junta and resistance groups since February 20 in Kale Township, Sagaing Region, according to volunteers.

Junta shelling caused most of the fatalities with others killed in drone strikes and shooting, a volunteer said.

“The regime deliberately shelled civilian targets and residential areas. Some were shot dead in Kale town,” he said.

Around 15 people were killed in junta shooting and shelling since resistance forces announced that they were stepping up their offensive in Kale on February 27.

Residents from Kale and neighboring Khaikam town in Chin State have since fled their homes.

Bomb shelters are vital for survival, said a volunteer helping displaced people.

“There is repeated regime shelling and airstrikes so people need bomb shelters and to prepare escape routes,” he said.

More than 50,000 Kale residents have been displaced and many urgently need food, medicine and clothes, according to volunteers.

A member of Voice of Kalay, an anti-regime group in Kale, said: “There has been heavy fighting across the township. We hear gunfire every night and more residents are being displaced.”

On March 16, resistance forces attacked Aung Myin Thar and Kyaung Taik villages in the north of the township where more than 140 junta soldiers and allied Pyu Saw Htee militia members were based. The regime used air support but both villages fell.

Around 20 junta troops and two resistance fighters were killed and two Pyu Saw Htee leaders were captured, according to resistance forces.

The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the reports.

Approximately 30 Pyu Saw Htee members and their relatives in Kyaung Taik were mistakenly killed by junta shelling and airstrikes on March 16, according to resistance forces.

A member of Kale Township People’s Defense Team told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that both villages had fallen.

The villages had been used as bases to shell and raid surrounding villages.

“Everyone who died in Kyaung Taik was Pyu Saw Htee. Some escaped to the military’s regional operations command,” said the Voice of Kalay member.

Junta troops deployed in Kale Technological University to the south of Kale are reportedly bombarding surrounding villages and torching houses.

A military analyst said: “The resistance offensive in Kale has become more systematic. The junta is losing territory and it may use Kale residents as human shields. People should leave when they can.”

Irrawaddy News

Airstrikes and shelling have killed 70 civilians in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

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Bombs and artillery shelling have targeted towns where junta troops have recently been driven away.

More than 70 civilians were killed in seven western Myanmar townships during the first three weeks of March as the junta sent airstrikes and artillery fire into communities where it recently lost control, local residents told Radio Free Asia.

The indiscriminate shelling in residential areas has injured more than 100 civilians in the seven townships captured by the rebel ethnic Arakan Army since November, according to residents.

“We are afraid of jet fighters flying,” a woman from Rakhine state’s Kyauktaw township told RFA. “At night, we cannot sleep well out of fear.” 

The Arakan Army, or AA, took control of Kyauktaw in January and drove junta troops out of Mrauk-U and Minbya townships in February. Residents there have faced daily airstrikes since early March, according to Mya Tun, the director of Arakan Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Association.   

“The bombardment on villages is an inhuman act,” he said. “Schools and houses have been destroyed. The military uses highly destructive cluster bombs and 500-pound bombs.”

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A Myanmar junta airstrike demolished these buildings in Ramree township, Rakhine state, Feb. 21, 2024. (AA Info Desk)

Airstrikes and artillery shelling has also taken place in Myay Pon, Ponnagyun and Pauktaw townships in Rakhine and in Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state.

‘Grave civilian safety risks’

According to RFA’s figures, 73 civilians were killed and 103 were injured in airstrikes and artillery shelling in those townships between March 1 and March 18.  

In Myay Pon, junta airstrikes destroyed homes and schools, residents said. In Mrauk-U, aerial drone attacks on March 15 and March 17 in ethnic Rakhine neighborhoods left three dead and eight injured. 

“The military council carried out retaliatory airstrikes after they suffered the loss of their soldiers in Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U and Minbya townships,” a Mrauk-U resident told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Another reason for these attacks is to cause trouble to Rakhine people.”

Rakhines, also known as Arakanese, are one of 135 officially recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar. 

Rakhine state has been the center of intense clashes since the AA ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat. 

Fighting between the AA and junta troops is now taking place in 15 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or UNOCHA, said on Wednesday.

“Artillery fire and aerial bombardment, including in residential areas, are causing grave civilian safety risks,” it said in a statement.

A March 14 statement from UNOCHA said that the resurgence of fighting in Rakhine state has left more than 300,000 people displaced since November.

RFA attempted to contact Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesman for Rakhine state, for a response to allegations that junta air strikes have targeted civilians, but he didn’t respond.

RFA News

Irregularities taint military draft lottery in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady

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Residents say not all of those eligible for service are being entered in selection pools.

Authorities in southwestern Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region have commenced lotteries to select who will be drafted into the military from among lists of draft-eligible youths, but residents say the process is tainted by irregularities.

The announcement last month of a conscription law, prompting youths of fighting age to flee to areas controlled by rebel groups or leave the country to avoid service. While the military regime says it will not begin drafting people until April, RFA Burmese has received reports indicating that forced recruitment is already underway.

The draft comes as the military tries to replenish its ranks after suffering a series of battlefield defeats to rebel forces, including the surrender of hundreds of soldiers. 

Residents of Ayeyarwady region told RFA that authorities in the townships of Pyapon, Myaungmya, and Hinthada began instituting lotteries for the draft at the village level on Saturday, after compiling lists of residents aged 20-30. The selection process is being supervised by relevant administrators, officials and community elders, they said.

But the lotteries have raised hackles in communities where residents say not everyone on lists of the draft-eligible are being added to the selection pool.

“When the neighborhood elders compile a list, those included are required to attend the [lottery] meeting,” said one resident of Hinthada who was among those selected for service. “However … some people on the list are not called upon … They are neither employed nor studying. So why are these people being left out?”

The resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said that “only a minority are included” in the lottery.

Some who have taken part in the draft lottery accused authorities of “administrative dishonesty,” although they were unable to provide details or evidence of their claims.

RFA has reported that amid forced recruitment drives in other parts of the country, some residents have been able to avoid service by paying “fines” to authorities.

Another resident of Hinthada told RFA that in some neighborhoods in the township, those selected in the draft lottery were immediately taken away by authorities.

“After the draw, the person who was chosen must go,” said the resident. “In a nearby neighborhood, people said they were taken at once.”

A resident of Pyapon told RFA that lotteries for military service were held on Sunday in some of the township’s villages, but said some of those chosen had managed to “avoid participation.”

Attempts by RFA to ascertain why some draft-eligible residents were omitted from lotteries remain inconclusive.

Tragedy following lottery

Reports of conscription irregularities came as RFA learned that one young man in Ayeyarwady’s Kangyidaunt township took his own life after being selected to serve in the military.

The entrance to the Ayeyarwady region’s Kangyidaunt township is seen in an undated photo. (Ayeyarwaddy Times)
The entrance to the Ayeyarwady region’s Kangyidaunt township is seen in an undated photo. (Ayeyarwaddy Times)

Residents of Kangyidaunt’s Pathein district said that on Saturday, a lottery was held and three young men from Yae Twin Chaung village were chosen for service.

A 20-year-old from among the three men, who was known to be against the draft, died by suicide the following day, said one of the residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

“I learned that he died that evening after receiving emergency medical treatment at the Pathein Public Hospital,” said the resident. “His family has been summoned by the local police station for interrogation.”

A source who lives in proximity to Yae Twin Chaung also confirmed to RFA that the man had taken his own life after being selected for service in a lottery overseen by village elders.

Although there is no positive proof that the man’s death and his selection in the draft lottery are related, it highlights the tensions young Burmese men are facing due to conscription.

Young adults aged 20-30 are eligible for conscription in Ayeyarwady region through lotteries, residents told RFA. Typically, two or three people are chosen from each village or ward.

Youths in Ayeyarwady region have told RFA they are reluctant to serve in the military.

Attempts by RFA to contact Khin Maung Kyi, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesperson for Ayeyarwady region, for comment on the recruitment process went unanswered Monday.

Junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun announced on Feb. 15 that 50,000 people would be recruited annually under the country’s draft law.

Based on Myanmar’s 2019 transit census, at least 13 million people are eligible to serve, he said.

RFA News