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UN efforts in Myanmar fail in implementation: Shadow government, aid groups

February 14, 2023/in News

The UNOCHA must expand its assistance to conflict areas where need is greatest, they say. Myanmar’s shadow government and aid groups have welcomed the United Nations’ efforts to assist millions amid widespread armed conflict in the country, but say they must be better implemented if they are to be effective. The U.N. Office for the […]

Female political prisoners brutally beaten in Mandalay’s Obo Prison

February 14, 2023/in News

A handwritten letter from inside the prison describes a two-day assault on more than 70 women using metal batons and tasers Several women incarcerated on politically motivated charges in Mandalay’s Obo Prison have been injured in recent physical assaults by guards, according to sources in contact with the inmates. A Mandalay-based youth activist shared with […]

UN efforts in Myanmar fail in implementation: Shadow government, aid groups

February 14, 2023/in News

Female political prisoners brutally beaten in Mandalay’s Obo Prison

February 14, 2023/in News

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UN efforts in Myanmar fail in implementation: Shadow government, aid groups

February 14, 2023/in News

The UNOCHA must expand its assistance to conflict areas where need is greatest, they say.

Myanmar’s shadow government and aid groups have welcomed the United Nations’ efforts to assist millions amid widespread armed conflict in the country, but say they must be better implemented if they are to be effective.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) recently announced that 17.6 million people, or nearly one-third of Myanmar’s population of 55 million, need humanitarian assistance two years after the military seized power in a coup. In the 24 months since the coup, the number of people displaced by conflict had grown to 1.5 million, up from 1.2 million in January this year, it said.

But while the U.N. provided aid to some 4 million people across the country in 2022, it said that ongoing conflict, airstrikes, and tightened security have severely hampered the ability of its agency and other organizations to provide humanitarian assistance.

Win Myat Aye, minister of Humanitarian and Natural Disaster Management for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, acknowledged the difficulties in providing assistance amid widespread conflict, but said U.N. needs to do a better job.

“UNOCHA’s statistics for the previous year of 2022 show its humanitarian assistance programs were not effective,” he told RFA Burmese.

“We have seen that its programs are mainly concentrated in the Yangon region [where conflict is less pronounced] and they cannot provide aid effectively to other regions where the need for humanitarian aid is urgent. We conclude its programs were not able to provide aid effectively.”

UNOCHA’s own reporting found that at least 4.5 million of those in need of assistance are from Myanmar’s more remote conflict areas, with women accounting for 52%, children for 32%, and the disabled for 12% of the total.

The agency said at the end of January that U.S.$764 million had been earmarked for an emergency assistance program through the country’s humanitarian aid community, and that priority would be given to the 4.5 million people in conflict areas.

But Banyar, the director of the ethnic Karenni Human Rights Group, told RFA that while he appreciates UNOCHA’s work, he doesn’t see it as adequate.

“I am particularly unsatisfied with what they have done for IDPs in Kayah state,” he said.

“They only provide aid in the areas where the junta has given them permission. Their work is also entirely compliant to junta restrictions.”

From bad to worse

Sources in areas that have seen some of the worst fighting between the military and the armed resistance told RFA that the situation had gone from bad to worse, particularly for those displaced by violence.

“We are always on the run, so I don’t have a job and can’t make any money,” said one woman in Sagaing region’s Salingyi township, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

“I have two kids, but I have never received any assistance. As I am running with the kids, I have to spend additional money for their nutrition. When I fled home this time, I didn’t have a dime as I had no income.”

Refugees in Matupi township in Myanmar’s Chin state make their way through the woods in 2022. Credit: Matupi Revolution News

More than 10,000 people from nearly 20 villages in Salingyi have fled their homes since the military began a clearance operation in the township on Feb. 4.

Another displaced woman in northern Shan state’s Kutkai township told RFA that fighting in the region had caused the price of basic commodities to soar in recent months.

“The price for rice is up significantly as we speak,” she said. “We have faced more and more hardships in life. We can barely make ends meet to provide for our families.”

‘A challenging situation’

A woman who fled fighting in Chin state’s Mindat township told RFA that her group is facing severe shortages, with many women and children among them.

“In some places there are no clinics, but even when there is a clinic, they don’t have enough medical supplies, so we have to travel to the city to get medicine,” she said.

“The IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and the officials accepting IDPs cannot provide medical care or medicine. Now, IDPs are required to find medical care using their own funds. So, we are facing a challenging situation.”

The Chin Human Rights Organization told RFA that at least 52,000 people from Chin State have fled across the border to India’s Mizoram state since the military coup.

When asked about delays to its emergency aid program for 2023, a UNOCHA representative told RFA in an emailed response that the agency is “working to start the process.”

According to independent research group ISP-Myanmar, as of Jan. 20, there had been at least 8,100 incidents of conflict in Myanmar since the coup – nearly double the number in the decade prior to the takeover.

Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said that authorities in Myanmar have killed 2,988 civilians and arrested more than 19,000 others since the coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Edited by Joshua Lipes.

RFA News

Female political prisoners brutally beaten in Mandalay’s Obo Prison

February 14, 2023/in News

A handwritten letter from inside the prison describes a two-day assault on more than 70 women using metal batons and tasers

Several women incarcerated on politically motivated charges in Mandalay’s Obo Prison have been injured in recent physical assaults by guards, according to sources in contact with the inmates.

A Mandalay-based youth activist shared with Myanmar Now parts of a handwritten eyewitness account from inside the prison detailing the beatings and when they occurred. Titled “Oppressed Prisoners,” it was delivered to him through covert channels, and described a crackdown on detainees in two women’s wards that was perpetrated on February 3 and 4.

“[The letter says] that the male prison authorities charged into the ward and beat over 70 female political prisoners. They were also allegedly hit with slingshots,” he explained.

The activist said that the document also included a list of the prisoners who had been beaten and injured.
Letter_2.Jpeg

The letter sent from inside Obo Prison

Among those subjected to the assaults was 20-year-old San Lin May, who was arrested in December 2021 after being accused of funding an urban guerrilla force. On February 3, she was convicted in a junta court of violating Section 50 of the Counterterrorism Law and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The day after her sentencing, a source close to San Lin May’s family said that guards attacked inmates in her ward following a dispute between detainees and the prison authorities. They were reportedly armed with wooden and iron batons to which tasers had been attached.

During the episode of violence, her ear was at least partially cut off.

“They were all beaten indiscriminately… San Lin May was simply caught in the crossfire of the conflict,” the source said, adding that her wound had required five stitches. “We heard that the injury was serious, and we’re all deathly worried because we have not been able to make direct contact with [the prisoners].”

Another woman identified as having been beaten that day was Po Pyae Thu, a restaurant owner known for her philanthropy work and serving a lengthy sentence after being convicted by the military council of multiple politically motivated charges.

“It worried us a lot to see her name on the list,” a friend of Po Pyae Thu said. “It’s even worse because we have not heard any updates on her condition, nor have we had direct contact with her.”

A woman released from Obo Prison three months ago told Myanmar Now that the facility’s authorities treated political prisoners with “extreme hostility, out of spite” and that other criminal convicts were also encouraged to take part in the abuse.

“The worst thing I saw in prison was that [the guards] appointed several prisoners as administrators to ‘govern’ other prisoners: criminals that were sent to prison for dealing drugs or gambling were ruling over and torturing political prisoners,” she said. “On my first day in prison, I was beaten with a belt by another prisoner for absolutely no reason at all.”

A Mandalay lawyer assisting political prisoners in Obo told Myanmar Now in October last year that the inmates were “losing their rights every day,” noting that after being subjected to violence, they were typically denied medical care.

The All Burma Federation of Student Unions released a statement last August which also revealed that Obo’s political prisoners were being starved, beaten, and even electrocuted.

In June, at least two inmates of the prison were beaten to death with metal batons during a crackdown that also left at least 13 others injured, according to two lawyers.

Similar assaults were reported over the following months by released prisoners, including an attack on August 8—the anniversary of the start of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement—that resulted in at least one death.

Myanmar Now is unable to independently verify the incidents. The military has used health restrictions associated with the Covid-19 pandemic to deny visits to political prisoners, making it difficult to gather further information on the ongoing rights violations.

Nearly 14,000 people were still in junta prisons at the time of reporting, more than 3,000 of whom were women, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Myanmar Now News

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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.

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