Category Conflict
Myanmar’s conscription plan backfires as young people flee to join rebel army
The Telegraph, 16 April 2024 Sitting on flimsy plastic chairs in an old town hall with holes in the roof and flaking paint on the walls, a dozen young people wait patiently for their turn to join Myanmar’s rebel army. As they kill time, they compare notes about the junta-controlled cities and villages they have come from. […]
Myanmar junta soldiers left hiding in the bushes after humiliating defeats
The Sunday Times, 12 April 2024 From the Thai side of the bridge, they are invisible, but everyone knows they are there: Myanmar junta soldiers, about 200 of them, skulking along the bank of the Moei River. Until this week, they were part of the government forces defending Myawaddy, one of Myanmar’s most important trading […]
Myanmar’s rebels see unity as key to victory over weakened military rulers
Al Jazeera, 3 February 2024 Karen State, Myanmar – A young fighter looks out from the upper floor in a concrete skeleton of a church that villagers have been building for two years in this small pocket of southeast Myanmar. The construction work has been a slow undertaking, said 21-year-old Zayar, a member of Myanmar’s Muslim […]
Inside Myanmar’s military bases: Wives stand guard as war escalates
Nikkei Asian Review, 24 November 2024 MYANMAR BORDER, Thailand — The sudden escalation of Myanmar’s civil war, with coordinated resistance attacks across the country’s northeast, has shaken the military establishment and reenergized pro-democracy forces. Rare interviews with wives of serving soldiers reveal that the grip of the dictatorship may be as shaky in its bases, […]
Life and death on the front lines of fighting in Myanmar
Al Jazeera, 11 August 2023 Demoso, Eastern Myanmar – The rebel commander studies a chicken bone in a search for clues as to the fate of his coming attack against the Myanmar military. Scraggly bearded Reh Du, 27, frowns. The signs from the bone are mixed. Nevertheless, his underlying confidence in the plan of attack against […]
In the targets of the junta: life and war inside rebel-held Myanmar
The Observer / Guardian, 4 June 2023 On a busy strip in eastern Myanmar, restaurants with bomb shelters serve sizzling plates of beef washed down with Belgian beer and French wine. Teenagers mingle in snooker halls, women relax in beauty salons and revolutionaries get inked in tattoo parlours. From dawn, steaming bowls of noodle soup are […]
Myanmar’s border midwives deliver hope to refugees
Nikkei Asian Review, 12 April 2023 Mizoram, India — A sudden chill stirred three pregnant refugees as the sun disappeared behind the mountains of Mizoram state, on India’s northeastern border with Myanmar. Sitting outside their makeshift home, a tarpaulin tunnel sheltering 160 people, Then Nun Mawi said she had suffered cramps so bad that she […]
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 […]
Lorcan Lovett 
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