PRESS STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR DISASTER RELIEF FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS AND AFFECTED COMMUNITIES IN MYANMAR

30 March 2025

Press Statement: Civil society calls for disaster relief for earthquake survivors and affected communities in Myanmar

Aid agencies must ensure relief is not exploited by the military junta

We—the undersigned 265 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations—express our deepest sorrow for communities across Myanmar and Thailand devastated by the earthquake on 28 March 2025. As Myanmar faces yet another humanitarian crisis amidst the military junta’s intensifying campaign of terror against the Myanmar people, it is imperative that the international community immediately mobilize resources and direct disaster emergency relief to survivors and affected communities of the earthquake. This must be channeled through local community groups and frontline responders in collaboration with the National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs), and civil society. We emphasize that these disaster relief efforts, through any implementing partners, must not be exploited, manipulated, or weaponized by the military junta for its political and military gain.

The earthquake on Friday—a severe 7.7 magnitude and the region’s most devastating in nearly seven decades—has caused over 2,500 confirmed deaths [1] and left communities across Myanmar shattered, homes and religious infrastructure destroyed, and tens of thousands of lives in peril. With hospitals overwhelmed, roads and bridges collapsed, and aftershocks threatening further destruction, immediate and unimpeded humanitarian assistance is crucial. Areas hit by the earthquake include Sagaing, Mandalay, Magwe, and Bago Regions, eastern and southern Shan State, and Naypyidaw. Most of these areas are under the effective control and administration of the NUG, EROs, and People’s Defense Forces. In affected areas under its control as well as under the resistance’s control, the junta will attempt to weaponize aid to attack and leverage gains over the resistance movement. Myanmar’s history provides stark warnings about the dangers of channeling aid through the military junta.

During Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the then military regime cynically weaponized disaster relief efforts to manipulate results of its sham referendum. International aid was obstructed from entering the country and withheld from desperate survivors to coerce their favorable vote for the military-drafted constitution in exchange for aid—all measures employed to secure its control and meddling in politics. Many local volunteers from the democratic movement were arrested and imprisoned by the regime for attempting to deliver assistance. This heavily delayed critical assistance and caused masses of civilian casualties. Once aid was finally allowed into Myanmar, the military regime and their officials diverted and misused it for personal and political gain, including benefiting constituencies with ties to the regime. This is but one example of the Myanmar military’s grotesque manipulation of human suffering for consolidation of political power and personal profit.

The military’s pattern of aid exploitation persists today, as evidenced by the junta’s obstruction and manipulation of relief efforts in response to recent natural disasters, namely Cyclone Mocha in 2023 and Typhoon Yagi in 2024, and its relentless commission of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against civilians across the country. Even after the earthquake on Friday, the military junta repeatedly bombed civilian areas in Chaung U Township in Sagaing Region, Phyu Township in Bago Region, and Naung Cho Township in northern Shan State—areas under its illegitimate declaration of state of emergency for natural disaster management. Earlier this month, the junta had already shut down seven private hospitals in Mandalay following an accusation of their employment of healthcare professionals from the Civil Disobedience Movement, severely limiting healthcare capacity in Mandalay, now torn by the earthquake. Against this backdrop, the junta has systematically imposed years-long internet and phone line shutdowns, coupled with an aggressive crackdown on VPN usage, significantly restricting the flow of information about the devastation inside Myanmar and hindering emergency response efforts. The junta’s callous contempt for human life, even in the face of widespread earthquake devastation, underscores its unsuitability to oversee aid—and more importantly, its willingness to manipulate any humanitarian response.

At this critical time, we welcome the NUG’s announcement of a two-week pause in its offensive military operations in earthquake-affected areas, effective today. However, the military junta has continued dropping bombs in earthquake-affected Pauk Township, Magwe Region, as recently as this morning. We look to the United Nations’ and ASEAN’s facilitation to ensure the junta ceases all military offensives, especially the immediate halt of ongoing airstrikes.

As communities across Myanmar mobilize to support one another amidst the devastation, we call on UN agencies, the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), neighboring countries, international organizations, and the wider international community to collaborate directly with Myanmar’s legitimate stakeholders—namely the NUG and EROs—and civil society to ensure aid is not obstructed, manipulated, or weaponized by the junta. Aid can and must reach earthquake survivors and affected communities without delay through border-based channels which have proven the most effective. The NUG’s swift activation of the Emergency Operation Coordination Committees following the earthquake exemplifies its readiness and capacity to lead relief efforts in collaboration with ethnic and community partners. We commend the prompt and impactful responses to this disaster, particularly through crowd-funding efforts, including by the NUG and Myanmar Earthquake Response Coordination Unitcomprised of Myanmar civil society organizations, which have already provided essential support to affected communities.

We once again remind the international community, particularly aid agencies, that humanitarian assistance must be guided by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, do no harm, and operational independence. The UN Country Team must fully embody these principles in their action, remembering the hard lessons learned from past engagements on aid with the military junta and past military regimes. Disaster response to this latest catastrophe must prioritize collaboration with stakeholders who demonstrably value the lives, safety and well-being of the Myanmar people—the NUG, EROs, and civil society—while actively preventing the junta from obstructing or exploiting aid delivery. Failure to do so will deepen the already dire humanitarian crisis and guarantee further abuses by an illegal body notorious for its active destruction of human lives.

We urge the UN, neighboring countries, and the wider international community to remember Myanmar’s painful history of the military’s manipulation of aid in times of natural disasters, and act resolutely to protect affected and vulnerable communities from exploitation and further suffering. The people of Myanmar deserve aid that alleviates suffering—not aid weaponized against them.

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