More than a million people newly displaced since the February 2021 coup, 15.2 million people “severely and moderately food insecure”according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), childhood vaccination rates have fallen below 50%, against approximately 90% previously: Burma, 53 million inhabitants, is in full humanitarian distress.
International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies face unprecedented access and funding difficulties. A myriad of small associations linked to resistance networks abroad carry the bulk of the humanitarian effort, but are far from meeting the needs.
Almost a year and eleven months after the military coup that overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the military junta has failed to put down the armed insurgency launched by the underground administration of resistance, the government of national unity (NUG), in September 2021. But it is not at the gates of power either: despite the rallying of several ethnic guerrillas to the NUG, the army controls the cities and infrastructure both in the ethnic regions and in the center of the country.
And General Min Aung Hlaing, author of the putsch of 1er February 2021, continues to travel from one end of the country to the other: he was in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, in mid-December, to galvanize the troops of the Tatmadaw, the Burmese armed forces. These multiply the operations punch against the civilian populations to establish a climate of terror.
As a result, the number of displaced people has exploded in the states forming the multi-ethnic ring of the country, where the Karenni, Shan, Karen and Chin guerrillas have taken up arms again against the junta: there are nearly 300,000 new internal refugees there.
The border areas with Thailand live under the infusion of support networks from the diaspora and small NGOs: it is through this very porous channel that the majority of informal aid enters Burma. Bangkok refuses to officially authorize UN agencies or international NGOs to operate in the country.
Burned villages
On the border between India and Burma, the ethnic and religious affinities existing between the Indian state of Mizoram and the Chin state, both predominantly Christian, have allowed the reception of nearly 50,000 Chin refugees, despite New Delhi’s continued support for the Burmese military: “Apart from ad hoc assistance crossing the border, Chin State is cut off from the country, the junta is blocking all humanitarian aid shipments and restricting the transport of basic goods”says Salai Za Uk Ling of the Chin Organization for Human Rights.
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