More than 100,000 displaced by conflict in Myanmar in two weeks

No one is left in the villages on the east bank of the Sittaung River in Myanmar’s Shwegyin Township.

Over the past two weeks, junta troops have fired heavy artillery and shells into all 10 areas of the Bago region and threatened their residents, following clashes with ethnic Karen rebels, forcing some 1,500 people to flee to the municipal seat in search of safety. Up to 200 refugees now take refuge in each of the city’s monasteries where they rely on donations for their daily needs.

An aid worker who, like others interviewed for this report, declined to provide his name due to security concerns, told RFA Burmese that “there is no one left” in the east bank villages.

“We are all taking refuge in the city in monasteries, rest houses and pagodas,” he said.

“Some of us are staying at our friends’ houses. Those who stay with friends usually don’t get the donations that others get. Others stay in refugee camps, so donors know their exact number and can help everyone.”

The refugees in Bago join hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the conflict in Myanmar since the military coup on February 1, 2021, leaving the country mired in what international human rights groups and aid organizations call a humanitarian crisis.

According to the latest situation reports released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on March 4 and 21, the number of war refugees in Myanmar increased by more than 100,000 across the country in the two weeks of March 27. from February to March 2. 13 alone.

The latest additions, most of whom live in Kachin, Kayah and Shan states, as well as the eastern Bago region, bring the number of people displaced by the conflict in the country to more than 1.7 million people, UNOCHA said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Karen Peace Support Network said on February 26 that more than 180,000 people have fled fighting in Bago’s Nyaung Lay Pin and Taungoo townships since the takeover alone.

In Myanmar’s southeastern Kayin, Kayah and Mon states, nearly 410,000 people have been displaced by the conflict during the same period, according to UNOCHA, while another 943,000 have fled their homes in the Sagaing and Magway regions, in western Myanmar, and in Chin State.

Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, told RFA that the number of war refugees in Myanmar’s southeastern Kayah state had skyrocketed by some 30,000 people in the past two weeks alone.

‘We have nothing left’

A woman among those displaced from the Sagaing region told RFA that junta troops burned down more than a quarter of the structures in her village of 1,000 homes of Tha Ma Yoe in Wetlet township on March 17. , forcing some 4,000 residents to flee with nothing but their clothes on their backs.

She said her two-story house was destroyed in the raid, as well as all her rice and bean crops.

“We couldn’t take anything when we ran, as the junta soldiers stormed our village from the east and west side at the same time,” she said, adding that she “had to run for about 10 hours” before she and others. they were able to rest.

“It rained that day and we were soaked… We had to stay under a tree. We have nothing left. We are angry with them for what they have done to us. We want to take up arms and fight back.”

Similarly, more than 8,000 residents of Wetlet’s Han Lin Village, a UN World Heritage-listed cultural site, were forced to flee during a military raid on October 22, and most remain displaced five months later. .

“We have had to stay in huts made of canvas in the jungle,” said one of the residents. “We have received more than 50 tarps (as donations), but there are more than 8,000 people here.”

The resident said that around 40 junta soldiers remain stationed in Han Lin, making it impossible for people to return to their homes.

Those unable to flee military incursions often face a far worse fate.

Ko Phone, the administrator of Tilin township in Magway region, told RFA that a joint force of military troops from the 77th Division and pro-junta armed groups killed seven civilians in the villages of Shwe Khon Taing and Say. Min Taw during raids carried out on March 15 and 16.

Among the victims were a blind woman in her 80s named Khin Pu and a man in his 70s named Kar Kyaw, who were burned alive when junta troops set fire to their homes. In addition, troops shot dead Than Htwe, a 55-year-old villager who suffered from mental illness, Ko Phone said.

Thakin Zaw of the Yaw Revolution Army, an anti-junta group of the People’s Defense Forces, said a 10th grade student from Say Min Taw village who had fled the fighting was found shot in the head and hands. tied behind the back. He said that his group is investigating who is responsible for the murder.

International aid has stalled

Those lucky enough to have escaped raids are often unable to return home due to the military presence or are too afraid to return. In the meantime, they are completely dependent on donations for things like food, medicine, and shelter.

An aid worker in Kayah said it was imperative that both the junta and the shadow Government of National Unity work with international organizations to help the growing number of refugees in Myanmar.

“Responsible officials and individuals… must cooperate with international organizations for humanitarian reasons to provide practical and effective assistance, such as food and medicine,” the aid worker said.

The ASEAN Humanitarian Aid Coordination Center for Disaster Management (AHA) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia reached an agreement on May 6, 2022 to provide immediate relief to war refugees in Myanmar through the Ministry of International cooperation of the board together with the UN. assistance agencies.

But the refugees and the aid workers helping them said they have yet to receive effective assistance in the more than 10 months since the deal, a claim echoed by Banyar and Pado Saw Thamaing Tun of the Human Rights Group. Karenni, a central committee member of the Karen National Union.

Attempts by the FRG to reach Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s international cooperation minister, by phone went unanswered on Wednesday. Requests for comment were sent via email to the ASEAN Humanitarian Coordination Center on disaster management and UNOCHA had not yet received a response at the time of publication.

According to UNOCHA, at least 1.4 million people have been forced to flee fighting since the coup, joining the more than 300,000 already displaced in Myanmar before the takeover.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.