More than 100,000 people have been killed, on all sides, since the start of the civil war in Burma following a military coup in 2021, an organization specializing in monitoring armed conflicts said on Wednesday July 1.
The military ended a decade of democratic experiment in the Southeast Asian country five years ago, toppling the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and arresting the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Anti-putsch demonstrations were then repressed by security forces, but pro-democracy activists left the cities to fight the junta alongside armed movements from ethnic minorities long hostile to central power.
According to the latest data from the American NGO Acled (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data), which lists incidents reported by the media, the clashes left a total of 100,114 dead. There is no official toll and estimates vary widely, but analysts consider this conflict to be the deadliest currently taking place in Asia.
Fragmented conflict
The leader of the putschists, Min Aung Hlaing, recently became president following an electoral process described abroad as a maneuver to prolong military rule under the appearance of civilian power.
According to the UN, more than 3.7 million people are internally displaced and more than one in five people are food insecure. The largest city, Yangon, is relatively normal, but violence can take the form of sporadic assassinations. Other areas are pounded daily by airstrikes carried out by military planes supplied by Russia and China.
Acled has documented more than 1,200 separate armed groups in the chaotic civil war, calling it “the most fragmented conflict in the world.” “The conflict has spread throughout the country,” commented Acled analyst Sun Mon Thant. “We are seeing more massacres. The army targeted schools, clinics, prisons…”
The dynamics of the conflict have shifted from one side to the other over the past five years. A joint offensive by several rebel groups allowed them to make spectacular advances at the end of 2023, moving closer to Mandalay, the country’s second city. But the situation turned in favor of the army again last year, analysts say, after China gave it support and favored the signing of truces with two of the most powerful ethnic armed groups.
The general staff introduced conscription in February 2024 to strengthen its ranks, forcibly enlisting some 50,000 civilians. “These conscripts can’t do anything. It’s as if they were simply sent to die,” testified a 20-year-old man, who deserted after six months on the front line. “If you don’t die in one place, they send you somewhere else.”
The war indirectly affected neighboring countries, where many refugees fled to camps in Thailand and Bangladesh.
According to observers, armed groups on all sides finance their war effort with profits from trafficking drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. Loosely controlled border areas have also become a hotbed for online scam centers, often operating from fortified compounds guarded by militias.
