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

October 31, 2022/in News

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 […]

Children Targeted by the Junta

October 31, 2022/in Justice Newsletters

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 […]

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

October 31, 2022/in News

Children Targeted by the Junta

October 31, 2022/in Justice Newsletters

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

October 31, 2022/in News

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

October 31, 2022/in Justice Newsletters

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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Spring Revolution

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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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