None of the five political parties that meet the criteria to take part in a general election in Myanmar can mount a challenge to the military’s grip on power, an opposition official said Tuesday, urging the groups to boycott any junta-led ballot.
Nearly 10,000 residents of Myanmar’s central Bago region have fled their villages as junta troops continue their scorched-earth operations in an attempt to flush out local People’s Defense Forces and ethnic Karen fighters.
No one has returned to the once-picturesque hilltop resort town of Thanduang in southern Myanmar.Six weeks after junta troops shelled the town in Kayin state, the more than 8,000 residents who fled are too scared to return to their homes for fear of further attacks by the military
Battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the military coup and an ensuing civil war, Myanmar’s school system is in shambles. The number of high school students taking a key exam has plunged 80%, parents, teachers and educational experts say.
The conflict engulfing Myanmar in the wake of the 2021 military coup has led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians and ordinary people who took up arms to fight junta troops, who have raided and razed villages, bombed them from the air and rounded up hundreds for detention, torture or immediate execution.
Two teenagers found beheaded last week were two of the most gruesome victims of an escalating number of violent incidents that the United Nations’ special rapporteur says are “consistent with patterns of brutality” among forces affiliated with the military junta.
Myanmar’s deposed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint have not been allowed to meet with their legal team since their trials ended in December of last year, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Residents and internally displaced persons in Myanmar’s war-torn Kayah state are facing a humanitarian emergency as junta forces confiscate food and medicine at dozens of security checkpoints along major land routes in the southeastern state as fighting there intensifies, local sources said
Myanmar’s junta has focused much of its military firepower on Kayin state, carrying out 57 airstrikes on two key areas in January alone, highlighting the strategic importance of the area bordering Thailand rife with armed resistance groups and political opponents in hiding.
A rapid expansion in illegal gold mining since the military coup is poisoning the water supply in Myanmar’s Kachin state and destroying the livelihoods of residents who say the ethnic Kachin group that administers the region has failed to police the sector.