Category Conflict
Defections from Myanmar military slow as generals tighten grip
Al Jazeera, 7 March 2023 Mizoram, India – Aung Pyae paces outside the hillside clinic on India’s remote border with Myanmar. The crackle of gunfire between his former comrades in the military and pro-democracy fighters a few hundred metres away in his homeland has eased, and all Aung Pyae can hear now are the moans of […]
‘The most painful, inhumane act of terror’: Myanmar’s Christmas Eve massacre retold
The Telegraph, 24 December 2022 One year on from the mass killings, survivors and relatives of the dead recount the horrors Esther spent last Christmas Eve in a state of nerves waiting for her two children as they made their way across conflict-torn Myanmar. The next day, on Christmas, she learnt she would never see […]
Inside the rebel-held jungle camp concealed from Myanmar’s junta
The Telegraph, 10 October 2022 It was a long month. As Htay Mo trekked through rivers and across mountains thick with jungle, sleeping rough and relying on handouts, the word of a haven kept her going. The 26-year-old – who navigated landmines, snakes and soldiers as she carried her disabled son to safety – was […]
Sun, sea and civil war: holidaying in Myanmar
Nikkei Asian Review, 3 August 2022 In the grand lobby of a Yangon hotel, a senior Myanmar tourism official told me she was meeting government officials to “rebrand” the country to focus international attention on pristine beaches instead of conflict and military atrocities. It was March 2018, and Myanmar was governed by an elected civilian […]
‘We are not afraid’: anti-junta groups rail against Myanmar executions
Guardian, 26 July 2022 On Monday night at 8pm, the familiar, defiant sound of clashing pots and pans returned to the streets of Yangon. In the aftermath of last year’s coup, the same din was heard nightly as people demanded the return of democracy – until the military launched brutal crackdowns against any such acts […]
Guns, not monks, at monastery on Myanmar’s Thai border
Nikkei Asian Review, 11 May 2022 In a different world, Wat Fah Wiang Inn would symbolize the power of faith to transcend the borders between two largely Buddhist nations. Trust and tolerance, not guns, would hallmark this monastery straddling the Myanmar and Thailand border in the hazy Shan Hills, which stretch from Yunnan in China […]
‘All I can do is pray’: the Ukrainian women going home despite the danger
Guardian, 20 April 2021 To be with children, to care for elderly relatives, to find work: civilians tell why they are leaving safe countries for a war zone As the war crept closer to Odesa, Ann heeded the pleas of her friends abroad and fled to Holland. A month later, as she tried to calm […]
‘The darkest days are coming’: Myanmar’s journalists suffer at hands of junta
Guardian, 7 June 2021 Journalism has been outlawed in all but name since the coup, with reporters and editors fleeing the country or leading double lives to survive As a cyclone rolled over the Bay of Bengal on 24 May, American journalist Danny Fenster, 37, contemplated the brooding skies near a terminal window at Yangon […]
‘People were going crazy’: Myanmar detainees recount military’s cruelty
Guardian, 31 March 2021 Freed protesters and a journalist detained by the junta describe beatings and squalid conditions Released from detention in Myanmar, protesters and journalists have described beatings, squalid conditions and cruelty under the military dictatorship that is opposed by most of the population. Hnin, 23, was arrested along with 400 other young people in […]
Fear turns to fury in Myanmar as children shot by military
Guardian, 28 March 2021 From soldiers randomly shooting passersby in the street to imminent economic collapse, anxieties have been plentiful in Myanmar since its military seized power on 1 February. But unease was surging ahead of Armed Forces Day on Saturday when the military was expected to meet protesters with a brutal crackdown. These expectations were more […]
Lorcan Lovett 
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