CHRO

 
 

MAE SOT, Thailand—A few times each month, Saw Khu wakes before dawn and sets out on a dangerous mission to deliver sacks full of Western aid money to conflict-torn areas deep inside Myanmar.

After sneaking across the border from Thailand in a wooden canoe, he is driven through a mountain range strewn with soldiers from Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup last year. Arriving at a rendezvous point, he divvies up the cash among colleagues who either hand it over to families in need or use it to buy rice, instant noodles, tarps, mosquito nets, soap and other essentials for them.

“I’m not afraid,” said Mr. Khu, a 47-year-old Myanmar national whose nonprofit has around 200 members across southeast Myanmar and a handful in Thailand. “It’s something that has to be done.”

Mr. Khu’s missions are illegal in both countries. They are one of the few precarious avenues being used to get aid to Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations since the 2021 coup ended a nascent transition to democracy and aggravated conflict between the army and its opponents, according to interviews with more than a dozen representatives of local and international aid organizations, human-rights advocates and officials from the U.S. and Thailand.

Aid arriving for people who settled temporarily by the Moei River to escape fighting between the Myanmar army and insurgent groups.PHOTO: ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA/REUTERS

While the U.S. Agency for International Development and United Nations agencies continue to operate inside Myanmar, their reach is limited because the junta controls where they can go and to a large degree what they can do. Getting permission to move around involved complex processes even before the coup, but representatives of three aid organizations said there is now an intentional regime tactic of denying them access to large populations to cut off resources to areas where opposition to military rule is strongest. They cited the regime’s denial of travel authorizations and arbitrary delays in issuing staff visas as obstacles.

 

To reach vulnerable communities, Western governments often take the cross-border route—but it is convoluted. Myanmar-focused groups like Mr. Khu’s aren’t eligible for legal status in Thailand, which means most foreign governments can’t send funds directly to them. Instead, the governments contribute to larger, registered organizations that, while primarily focused on Thailand, channel some of the funds to the dozens of smaller groups operating inside Myanmar.

Donors have little visibility on how the aid is ultimately distributed but say that the smaller groups that are capable of navigating Myanmar’s tough conditions are their best hope of reaching at least some hard-hit locations. Aid workers like Mr. Khu operate with the help of armed rebel groups in Myanmar that are fighting the junta, traveling through their territories and under their protection.

Displaced people from Myanmar living in makeshift tents on the Thai side of the Moei River, in Mae Sot, Thailand.PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Myanmar’s regime continues to deny humanitarian access to many populations in need and urged all countries to press them for more. “At the same time, we and others in the international community are identifying alternate means of providing lifesaving assistance that is not dependent upon access permission,” the spokesperson said.

U.S.-based advocacy group Refugees International estimates some $10 million worth of aid has entered Myanmar through Thailand since the coup via these informal channels. It is a fraction of overall aid to the country, which is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Large parts of Myanmar remain inaccessible, such as central-northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region where more than half of those displaced since the coup are located.

The U.N. says the number of people who need aid ballooned from one million before the coup to 14.4 million in its aftermath—more than a quarter of the entire population. Before the coup, roughly 350,000 people were internally displaced by earlier conflicts, forced to flee their homes but staying inside Myanmar. That number has now surpassed 1.2 million. Half of the country’s school-age children have had no access to education for two years.

Nationwide protests broke out last year after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, which ended a nascent transition to democracy.PHOTO: EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Many live in warzones that have no clear front lines. The coup sparked nationwide protests that were met with lethal force by the military, hardening the resolve of the army’s opponents, some of whom turned to guerrilla-style armed resistance. The military responded by bombing and burning villages suspected of harboring insurgents. Conflict is concentrated near the country’s northwest and southeast borders, and increasingly its central plains.

The Myanmar military didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Conditions for the displaced are desperate. Eh Htoo Say, a 30-year-old teacher from Myanmar’s southeast Karen state, fled in December with her 5-year-old son when the Myanmar military bombed and occupied their village, Au Kree Hta. Sometimes they stay under a tarp propped up by bamboo on the bank of a river that separates Myanmar from Thailand. At other times, they hide in a rickety wooden barn just across the river, in Thailand.

She can’t cook after dark because fire would betray her location. She and her son bathe in the open, either in the river or a flooded rice field. She uses banana leaves to collect rainwater to drink and survives on rice and canned fish brought by local charities—part of the patchwork of organizations like Mr. Khu’s.

“I can keep living as long as I have aid,” she said. “But if I don’t get more I’ll really be in trouble.”

Eh Htoo Say, a displaced villager from southeast Myanmar, stands in Thailand looking across the border to Myanmar.PHOTO: FELIZ SOLOMON/WALL STREET JOURNAL

Thailand Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said that cross-border aid is allowed through legally registered groups like the Thai Red Cross Society. But human-rights advocates and aid workers say delivering aid to populations deep inside Myanmar requires familiarity with the country’s languages, terrain and conflict dynamics.

The Myanmar nationals who do that work described living in constant fear of being caught crossing the border. They can’t use Myanmar’s banks or mobile transfer apps, which they believe are monitored by the military.

In early July, an aid worker who was using aid money to buy rice for displaced people in southeast Myanmar’s Bago region was abducted by the Myanmar military and killed, the worker’s organization said. Nearly all of the aid workers interviewed requested anonymity due to fear of arrest, deportation or further restrictions on access.

“We’re just trying to help people, but to do that we have to be tricky, creative, and risk our lives,” said Mr. Khu’s supervisor. “There’s no guarantee—if we die, we die.”

Write to Feliz Solomon at [email protected]

The Dangerous Mission to Sneak Sacks of Cash in Western Aid Into Myanmar – WSJ

Date: July 20, 2022

Testimony_Oral_Presentation

Testimony of Salai Za Uk Ling, Deputy Executive Director of CHRO at the 4th Hearing of International Parliamentary Inquiry on Myanmar

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you this evening to speak about the situation of Chin people under military junta of Myanmar, which calls itself the State Administrative Council. My name is Salai Za Uk Ling and I represent the Chin Human Rights Organization, a group that has been documenting the human rights situation of Chin people for the last 27 years with a UN ECOSOC Special Consultative Status since 2018.

I am here to speak about the humanitarian consequences of the attempted coup with specific regards to the situation in Chin State, where I come from. I am doing so with the view of reminding all of us to stay laser-focused on who is responsible for the horrors of the past year and a half, and the urgent need for accountability and justice for the crimes committed, thus far with complete impunity. Let us be very clear that as we speak here today, the chief criminal mastermind who presided over the killings and mass atrocities against the people of Myanmar, General Min Aung Hlaing, is freely travelling internationally and visiting Russia, and the arm of international justice system is yet to reach him for the crimes he has committed. But I hope that this hearing will be the beginning of laying an important groundwork and providing impetus for advancing accountability and justice process in Myanmar.

That said, for the past year and half, Chin State with a Christian majority and a population of just below half a million, or one percent of the country’s population, has not escaped the kinds of atrocities and terrors at the hands of the Myanmar Army. In fact, the state has been one of the primary targets of military’s campaign of annihilation. I am using the word annihilation here because this is the exact word used by the junta’s spokesperson right before the start of their brutal military campaign around April last year. This should be emphasized because it was a public expression of criminal intent for what the army would do in the ensuing months. Our organization has closely monitored and documented incidents and patterns of the gross violations by the military over the period, and this is what we have found as of this month.

  • The unlawful deaths or extrajudicial killings of over 250 Chin civilians
  • Unlawful arrests and arbitrary detention of over 1100 people
  • The deliberate and intentional destruction of livelihood and civilian properties, including the burning of over 1800 houses across Chin State, the vast majority of which took place in my hometown Thantlang over the course of more than 30 separate attacks
  • The destruction of 65 religious buildings, including over 50 churches or places of worship
  • The forced displacement of an estimated 120,000 people, which constitute 20 percent of the entire population of Chin State

As you can see, despite being only 1 percent of the entire population, Chin State has suffered from disproportionate share of serious rights violations and related humanitarian crisis. The Tatmadaw is currently sending in two large military columns into Chin State, and there has been intense fighting in the north over the past three weeks. Soldiers from LID 22 have burned down three villages in Falam and Hakha Townships and summarily executed two civilians during this latest expedition. Fighting is also flaring up in the south as the reinforcement convoy is traveling from Pakhoku as we speak. The SAC troops are blocking all access routes to Chin State and preventing commercial traffics and basic commodities from entering to the area, including international humanitarian aid. This is all part of a strategy aimed at collective punishment under the four cuts practice. The objective is to establish strategic military dominance in the region by depopulating the entire region or pushing people into starvation, and eventually forcing them into submission under the military’s control. There is no end in sight for these gross violations being committed with impunity. The international community must act swiftly and decisively to tackle the culture of impunity and address the humanitarian needs of the people in the region. Everyday that action is delayed is another day that more people are dying and suffering. Something consequential needs to be urgently done to address the unfolding humanitarian disaster.

CHRO recommends the following course of action for the international community:

  • To take all measures to reject the legitimacy of SAC and deny their participation at any regional, multilateral or international spaces, including all the ASEAN platforms. We applaud countries that have boycotted the security summit in Russia this week, including New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and possibly South Korea and Japan
  • Adopt a more proactive, coordinated and direct approach towards Myanmar by stopping the usual approach of deferring everything to ASEAN, which has failed miserably
  • Directly engage with, and urgently make flexible funding and resources available for local CBOs and CSO networks who are providing humanitarian assistance to IDPs and refugee communities, especially via cross-border operations
  • Enable or increase funding for monitoring and human rights documentation work towards accountability and justice for international crimes committed by the military junta
  • Designate the civil servants across the country who continue to boldly defy the junta through the Civil Disobedience Movement as Frontline Human Rights Defenders to enable them to access channels for direct financial support for their brave human rights work.

 

Thank you

MPs denounce lack of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar ahead of International Parliamentary Inquiry’s fourth hearing – ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (aseanmp.org)

JAKARTA – The Myanmar people are not receiving the humanitarian assistance they need as the crisis triggered by the coup d’état of February last year worsens, parliamentarians from seven different countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe have denounced, ahead of the fourth public oral hearing of their International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) on the global response to the crisis in Myanmar, to be held today, 20 July.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) puts at over 750,000 the number of people displaced by the violence perpetrated by the Myanmar military in order to cement their power since the takeover, bringing the total for the country the record number of over 1 million.

Experts audited by the IPI in previous oral hearings have described a rapidly deteriorating situation, marked by a worsening economic crisis, an almost complete collapse of the health system and the systematic targeting of the civilian population by the military.

“Time is rapidly running out to prevent the worst-case scenario for millions of people in Myanmar. But instead of increased attention to the situation, we are seeing the opposite: less engagement by regional and international actors, less efforts to lead the junta to the negotiation table, and a unconscionable shortfall of almost 90 percent of funding for the humanitarian needs of the country in 2022. Inaction must end now,” said Heidi Hautala, IPI Committee Chair and Vice-President of the European Parliament.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of June 2022, only 11 percent of the 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Myanmar has been funded, “negatively affecting the breadth and quality of assistance delivered by humanitarians.”

“The utter failure of ASEAN’s 5-Point Consensus should be clear to all, yet there has been no effort made to change course. Meanwhile, the international community continues to ignore evidence indicating that a primary reliance on ASEAN has not and will not result in an alleviation of the plight of the Myanmar people. Reliance on ASEAN is not a strategy, but rather a disingenuous deflection of responsibility by international actors which must stop in order for solutions to the humanitarian crisis to be found,” said Charles Santiago, IPI Committee Member, Malaysian MP, and Chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).

To address these and other issues, the IPI will hold its fourth hearing on the global response to the crisis in Myanmar on July 20, at 6 pm (Bangkok time), via Zoom.

Experts who have confirmed their participation at the hearing include:

– Matthew Wells – Deputy Director, Crisis Response, Amnesty International.

– Dr Ashley South – Research Fellow, Chiang Mai University.

– Salai Za Uk Ling – Deputy Executive Director, Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO).

– Adelina Kamal -Former Executive Director for the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), currently Associate Senior Fellow at the Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS).

Join the IPI Fourth Oral Hearing by Zoom by following the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rcOyvqjorHNeUbaXpzbMBClSV1ekKN_ci

Livestream: https://facebook.com/aseanmp

All previous hearings can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpyEyu66jrCv5HORbeIV4w/videos

500 new infantry troops are being deployed to Chin State as SAC junta prepares for a major offensive against Chin resistance forces. Fighting have erupted in different parts of Chin State, including in Hakha town where LIB266 have fired rockets into civilian neighborhoods indiscriminately. Hundreds have fled their homes and villages in southern Chin State following the brutal killing of 10 civilians whose bodies were found bound and their throats slashed and stabbed.

Imminent Attacks?

500 new infantry troops are being deployed to Chin State as SAC junta prepares for a major offensive against Chin resistance forces. Fighting have erupted in different parts of Chin State, including in Hakha town where LIB266 have fired rockets into civilian neighborhoods indiscriminately. Hundreds have fled their homes and villages in southern Chin State following the brutal killing of 10 civilians whose bodies were found bound and their throats slashed and stabbed.

Read More

More people are fleeing from multiple villages in Matupi Township and moving towards the Indian border following the brutal summary killings of at least 10 civilians last week and as the military junta reinforces troops into the areas under the Tactical Operations Command in Matupi in southern Chin State.

Summary Killing of 10 Civilians

On January 6 at around 8:30 am, junta soldiers from LIB 140 of Matupi-based Tactical Operations Command arrested seven people who were traveling by motorbikes on the road between Kihlueng and Lunghlaw villages, northwest of Maputi Town. The arrests took place at a location about one mile outside of Kihlueng village. One of the travelers in the group is a 56 year-old villager (Name withheld) who turned away and escaped immediately upon witnessing the arrests of his traveling companions who were driving ahead of him. On the next day at around noon on January 7, villagers discovered 8 dead bodies, including that of a 13-year-old boy whose throat was slashed along the stretch of dirt road between Kihlueng and Lunghlaw. All the dead bodies have their hands tied behind their backs and bore knife wounds to the torso area and slashed throats. Two more bodies were discovered at a location between Kihlueng and Kace, another village in the area north of Kihlueng, the same day.

Among those summarily executed is Pu Tui Dim (55), a former staff member working for CHRO for many years before moving on to co-found Khonumthung News and worked as its Editor-in-Chief. The following is the list of persons who were brutally murdered by the junta.

1. Pu Tui Dim, 55
2. Pa Le Nang, 13
3. Salai Steven, 28
4. Pu La Ring, 58
5. Pu Va Thu, 38
6. Pu Paw Sali, 45
7. Pu Tin Sang, 41
8. U Yezar Aung, 40
9. Pu Lian Ngai, 42
10. Salai Thak Lung, 50

Villagers fleeing the area

Horrified by news of the brutal killings, more than 1000 civilians from at least six villages in the area, including Kihlueng, Kace, Boitia, Ngaleng, Lunghlaw and Tibaw villages have all fled and are taking shelter at Amlai, Rengkhen and Tangku villages. But as troops are reinforced in the areas, the IDPs, along with civilians from their host villages have further moved towards Sumsen and Sabawngpi, which are located closer to the Indian border. Some have crossed into Mizoram, including a witness to the arrests on January 6 of a group of travelers whose bodies were later found.

Troops reinforced

At least 90 truckloads of soldiers, ammunition and supplies are heading to Matupi and have been traveling from Kyaukhtu in Magway since January 9. As of January 11, the troops are on the way between Mindat and Matupi and have met with ambush from local resistance groups from the Chinland Defense Forces. Maputi is the base of one of the two Tactical Operations Command, which has an existing strength of three stationary battalions under its command (LIB 140, IB 304 and LIB 274 based in Mindat). The reinforcement are believed to be from some of the notorious Light Infantry Divisions, which are deployed in swift tactical situation and as a quick mobile combat force.

Aizawl: Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga on Monday said that his government would continue to make efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Myanmar nationals who fled their country following a military coup and took refuge in the north-eastern state.

During his interaction with leaders of Myanmar nationals, Mr Zoramthanga gave an assurance that his government will try its best to assist them.

The chief minister said that his government has taken up massive efforts and will continue to do so in the future to help those Myanmar nationals.

Mr Zoramthanga said that he had also urged the Centre several times to provide political asylum to the Myanmar nationals.

During his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, Mr Zoramthanga had urged them to provide assistance to the people of the neighbouring country.

Mr Zoramthanga had earlier said that the Centre assured the Mizoram government that it will take measures to ensure that the state government can continue to provide assistance to the Myanmar nationals.

“Though the Centre is very willing on its side, it can’t directly help the Myanmar refugees because India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol,” Mr Zoramthanga had told reporters earlier.

Thousands of Myanmar nationals are currently taking shelter in different parts of Mizoram.

While many live in relief camps or temporary shelters set up by villagers, others are accommodated by their relatives and some live in rented houses.

Most of the Myanmar nationals are from Chin state, who share ethnic ties with the Mizos.

Apart from the government, the NGOs, villagers and individuals provide food and shelter to the Myanmar nationals.

Mizoram shares a 510-km-long international boundary with Myanmar.

The north-eastern state is already home to thousands of Chin communities of Myanmar, who migrated to the state since the late 1980s fleeing the military junta in the neighbouring country.

Mizoram To Continue To Provide Humanitarian Aid To Myanmar Refugees (ndtv.com)

The New York Times

For decades, armed conflict, political repression and targeted campaigns against minorities have forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave the country. Now many more are expected to follow.

By Sui-Lee Wee

Terrified farmers and families with children in Myanmar are fleeing into India as the military junta that seized power in a February coup continues to seek out and eliminate resistance along the country’s border.

The Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has targeted areas that are home to thousands of armed civilians who call themselves the People’s Defense Force. Soldiers have fired rocket launchers into residential neighborhoods, burned down homes, cut off internet access and food supplies, and even shot at fleeing civilians, according to residents.

For more than seven decades, armed conflict, political repression and targeted campaigns against minorities like the Rohingya have forced hundreds of thousands of people from Myanmar to seek refuge in other countries. Many more are now expected to follow.

Aid groups say they are preparing for a flood of refugees, but are concerned that countries surrounding Myanmar such as Thailand may push them back. In Chin State in the northwest of Myanmar, an entire town of roughly 12,000 people has nearly emptied out in the past month. Residents have reported a large buildup of troops in recent weeks, signaling a potential wider crackdown by the Tatmadaw and leaving many people desperate to escape.

After troops burned down his home on Sept. 18 with rocket-propelled grenades, Ral That Chung decided he had no choice but to leave Thantlang, his town in Chin State.

“I love Myanmar, but I will return only if there is peace,” said Mr. Ral That Chung, who walked for eight days with 10 members of his family to reach India. “It’s better to suffer here than to live in fear in my own country.”

In the eight months since the army seized control, roughly 15,000 people in Myanmar have fled for India, according to the United Nations. Catherine Stubberfield, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Asia and Pacific bureau, said the agency has observed some 5,000 people who successfully entered India from Myanmar after recent clashes.

“The brutality in which entire villages are attacked indiscriminately has created a horrific situation in which people are absolutely desperate,” said Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar. “And things are getting worse.”

The refugees say they sleep in forests for days, some of them going without food as they make their way toward India. Once they reach the Tiau River crossing separating the two countries, they take a bamboo raft or boat across to reach safety.

In the tiny village of Ramthlo, Crosby Cung said all 1,000 people who live there were preparing to leave. The villagers, he said, have selected two to three places where roughly 500 people can hide out in the forest until they are ready to head for the Indian border. Last week, soldiers set a neighboring village on fire.

 

“It is really sad to see,” Mr. Cung said. “Leaving your village and fleeing into the jungle is not what we want to do. I want to protect my village so they do not loot and burn down the village. But we, the civilians, can’t do anything. We have no choice but to flee.”

The recent exodus has been most pronounced in Chin State, a stronghold of the People’s Defense Force where civilians have often suffered the brunt of the Tatmadaw’s cruelty. In August and September, 28 out of the 45 people killed in the rural border region were civilians, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization.

Chin State borders the Indian state of Mizoram and is predominantly Christian. Many of the locals in Mizoram are also ethnic Chin and have close ties to the Chin people in Myanmar, but their patience has been tested by a recent Covid outbreak that Mizoram officials have blamed on refugees.

A district official in Mizoram who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said even though the Indian government’s policy is to keep the borders closed to refugees, the locals are unofficially helping those fleeing Myanmar. If the locals did not provide assistance, the official said, the refugees would die.

Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, warned that the situation facing the refugees would become more difficult over time. “Resources will become increasingly scarce, and there may be pressure to send them back,” he said.

In India, the refugees live in shacks with tinned roofs or plastic tarps overhead. Van Certh Luai, a refugee who arrived in Mizoram after walking for three days, said her family of six gets only three gallons of water a day for drinking, washing and bathing. Mosquitoes feast on their skin. But the family says they are staying put.

“I do not want my three children to grow up in fear,” Ms. Van Certh Luai, 38, said.

The fighting in Chin State started in August, when 150 soldiers arrived in the town and started firing mortar rounds, injuring people and damaging houses. On Sept. 6, the Chinland Defense Force — the Chin arm of the People’s Defense Force — said it killed 15 soldiers.

Rights activists say the junta has targeted Chin State because it is home to the Chin National Front, the first ethnic armed group to throw its support behind the so-called National Unity Government, the organization founded by Myanmar’s ousted elected leaders. The rebel group has also been training thousands of anti-coup protesters who have taken up arms against the military.

Cer Sung said she heard gunshots and bombs falling at around 4 p.m. on Aug. 15 while she was boiling popcorn at home in Thantlang, in Chin State. In a state of panic, she looked for her 10-year-old son, who was watching his favorite Hindi cartoon on television, remote control in his left hand. As she entered the house, fragments of artillery shells started falling between her and her son.

Ms. Cer Sung, 44, recalled seeing the left side of her son’s body go up in flames. His left index finger, the one on the remote control, was blown off. He died on the spot.

“I am angry with the Myanmar army for brutally killing my only son,” Ms. Cer Sung said, sobbing.

She and her family have decided to remain in Myanmar for now, frightened to stay but also scared to find out what life would be like if they were to leave. Other families have scrambled to leave so quickly that they did not have much time to prepare.

Sui Tha Par said she found her husband, Cung Biak Hum, lying on the side of a road with two gunshot wounds to his back and chest after he rushed to extinguish a fire caused by Tatmadaw troops in Thantlang on Sept. 18. His ring finger had been cut off and his gold wedding band was missing, according to family members.

“They shot my husband to death,” Ms. Sui Tha Par said in tears. She is pregnant and expects to give birth next month, she said. After burying her husband, she and her two sons, 11 and 7 years old, decided to leave for Mizoram.

Thousands Flee Myanmar for India Amid Fears of a Growing Refugee Crisis – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Reign of Terror

This document details human rights violations committed by SAC actors during August and September, 2021. Attacks on the civilian population and civilian infrastructure initiated by the State Administration Council (SAC) junta have become increasingly relentless in western Burma/Myanmar since August 2021. Junta soldiers operating in Chin State and parts of Sagaing and Magwe Regions, under the Northwestern Regional Military Command based in Monywa, have conducted a campaign of unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and deliberate targeting of civilian and religious infrastructure.

Reign of Terror

Human Rights Briefing August September

Please download PDF here

Reign of Terror ReportCHRO

BRIEFING : THE NEED FOR URGENT CROSS-BORDER HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE ON THE WESTERN FRONT

September 12, 2021: A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Myanmar/Burma’s poorest state following an escalation of fighting in Thantlang and Hakha Townships, Chin State. This adds to a state-wide health crisis following the new wave of COVID-19 infections and an existing humanitarian crisis in Chin State’s southern townships, where fighting between the Tatmadaw and Chinland Defense Force (CDF) has been ongoing since May 2021.

Briefer_Humanitarian_CHRO

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To protect and promote human rights and democratic principles