The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is worsening primarily because the junta is committing daily atrocities against civilians, rather than because of active armed clashes, Ma May Hnin of the Emergency Management Committee – Mandalay (EMC-MDY) said on 22 July.
She made the remarks during an online press conference co-hosted by Progressive Voice and eight civil society organizations to release a joint briefing paper titled “Blocked Aid and Resilient People: Resisting the Military Junta’s Weaponization of Aid.”
“Rather than active armed clashes, the terrorist military is instilling fear in the public by committing increasingly severe daily atrocities. Consequently, our humanitarian crisis is worsening, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is rising, and aid supply routes are being systematically severed,” Ma May Hnin said.
From 2024 to the present, there have been over 1,000 airstrikes in Pyin Oo Lwin District, Mandalay Region, alone, resulting in over 70 mass casualty incidents, she said. These incidents were unrelated to armed clashes, she said, specifically targeting schools, hospitals, and public markets instead.
“If we look at the military offensives and arson attacks, the military is imposing collective punishment on the public. If IDPs flee to Village A, the military launches airstrikes on Village A to intimidate villagers against sheltering them,” Ma May Hnin added. “As a result, those IDPs merge with local villagers and flee to another village. You can visualize military aircraft tracking and bombing the routes along which these displaced people flee.”
Independent analyst Adelina Kamal said the junta deliberately commits atrocities to trigger humanitarian crises while simultaneously blocking humanitarian aid, which she said flagrantly violates the “Do No Harm” principle.
She said that through military checkpoints, administrative barriers, and the arrest of humanitarian aid workers, the junta is intentionally weaponizing aid. “If humanitarian aid operations are carried out only after obtaining their permission, it bestows legitimacy upon the junta. This shows how the junta is politically orchestrating a humanitarian crisis,” Kamal said.
According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA Myanmar), there are nearly 3.8 million displaced people across Myanmar, most of whom have been displaced multiple times.
The junta, meanwhile, imposes administrative restrictions to prevent aid from reaching these IDPs, blocks deliveries at checkpoints, confiscates aid supplies, and restricts civil society organizations, including volunteers, from carrying out aid operations, according to the briefing.
As a result, IDPs in the Anyar (Central Myanmar) region have had to resolve humanitarian crises through self-reliance, Ma May Hnin said. She urged international organizations to coordinate directly with civil society organizations operating on the ground, noting that international aid channeled through the junta rarely reaches those in actual need.
Mizzima