Civil War, once confined to rural areas, forces city dwellers to seek refuge.
This story was produced and published by Asia Democracy Chronicles. Photo of burning car in Lashio by Myanmar Now News via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Armed conflict is nothing new in Myanmar, where ethnic armies have fought the central government since the country became independent from British rule in 1948. But the fighting occurred mostly in the rural and remote areas, far from the Southeast Asian nation’s towns and cities.
Not anymore. Three years after the military known as the Tatmadaw grabbed power, war has come to Myanmar’s urban areas, upending the lives of people who had seen armed conflict only in TV news reports or documentaries, or heard about it from relatives and friends fleeing the fighting.
“Facing war in my city for the first time in my life filled me with deep sadness and sorrow for all citizens,” says Ko Phyo, who is still figuring out where to go after the country’s now raging civil war reached his hometown Singu, in the central Mandalay region. “We’ve experienced great loss, with death all around us.”
What had begun as a peaceful protest movement against the February 2021 military coup has turned into full-blown armed resistance by the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) and the ethnic armed groups.
The recent fall of Lashio – a key economic hub and the administrative headquarters of Shan State and the North Eastern Command of the Tatmadaw – in particular marks a significant and historic defeat for the junta headed by General Min Aung Hlaing. Indeed, unable to accept this defeat, the Myanmar military resorted to its typical response: airstrikes and the bombing of civilian areas.
This brutal tactic has rendered many communities across Myanmar uninhabitable, while aiming to instill fear, turn the population against the resistance, and weaken the resolve of those who support the fight for freedom.
As conflict analyst Ko Kyaw puts it, “Myanmar military always uses airstrikes to intentionally target civilian areas because they cannot locate the resistance forces and fear anti-aircraft weapons. Their strategy is to destroy cities and make examples of townships caught in the conflict, discouraging people from supporting the resistance.”
In Lashio, that tactic initially seemed to have the effect sought by the Tatmadaw, with some media reports noting that the township’s residents weren’t too glad to see ethnic armed groups and the war that these – and the military – brought right at their doorsteps. Many eventually fled, with Jessy, a young Lashio resident, telling Asia Democracy Chronicles (ADC) later: “I decided to stay as long as I could. But I couldn’t anymore, so my family and I decided to leave in two cars.”
“The depressing news that often accompanies reports of towns captured by resistance groups – and is not covered enough – is the number of people who have lost their lives, homes, and properties,” says Ko Kyaw. “The alarming humanitarian crisis in Myanmar urgently needs international attention. Rehabilitation and reconstruction are also crucial.”
Running out of refuge
Across Myanmar, approximately 3 million people are now internally displaced, many of whom are living without proper shelter amid the harsh monsoon season. In northern Shan State, a resurgence of fighting since late June – including the capture of Lashio – has displaced an estimated 33,000 people from four townships, with numerous civilian casualties and widespread destruction of homes and other structures.
Just as it had responded with bullets, as well as arrests and incarceration to peaceful protests consisting of nightly banging of pots and pans and street demonstrations, the junta has seen it fit to match each attack of the PDF and the ethnic armed groups with rampant destruction of civilian targets, with little concern for the possible loss of lives.
For instance, last July 17, the Mandalay People’s Defense Force (MDY-PDF) took control of Singu. By July 23, the military was bombing Kyi Tauk Pauk village in Singu Township, wounding six locals, among them a five-month-old baby.
On Aug. 5, a combined force led by the Chin National Front (CNF) seized control of Infantry Battalion-269 in Thantlang, Chin State in western Myanmar. Around midnight on Aug. 6, the military bombed the town in western Myanmar, using three jet fighters.
Thantlang, already devastated by repeated airstrikes and arson attacks by the military since late 2021, is now ruined and deserted.
As the war spreads, tens of thousands of Myanmar’s people have been forced to be constantly on the move. But many are finding themselves with nowhere to run.
At first, villagers fled to the cities seeking safety. But as war reached urban centers, many people have been relocating repeatedly, moving from one city to another.
Rural villager Hla Hla recounts, "When the war started in my village, I ran to the city of Kyaukme. But the war soon affected Kyaukme too, so I fled to my relatives in Lashio. A few weeks later, the war came there as well. So, I moved to Pyin Oo Lwin, then Mandalay, the second capital of Myanmar. Now we hear that battles will soon reach Mandalay, so we are considering fleeing to Yangon. But after Yangon, I don't know where I can run anymore. I'm exhausted from running."
Tracing Hla Hla’s journey so far, one can see that from Kyaukme, she had first headed northeast to Lashio, a distance of 105 kms. Then she doubled back and went southwest to Pyin Oo Lwin, which is 214 kms from Lashio. From Pyin Oo Lwin, she travelled about 74 kms westward to Mandalay. The next destination on her list, Yangon, is 575 kms south of Mandalay.
Myanmar’s financial center and former capital, Yangon, has seen an uptick in bombings of military offices and assassinations of personalities related to the junta in the last two years.
More security measures have also been implemented in the metropolis following a series of bomb attacks there – mostly on military targets – earlier this year.
An analysis posted on Sept. 3 by the Irrawaddy, a local news outlet, says that PDF groups have already encircled Mandalay and penetrated it “while continuing to attack surrounding junta positions.” It also said that the Central Military Command Headquarters at the Mandalay Palace has been “facing a barrage of drone and rocket bomb attacks.”
“Capturing Mandalay is seen as crucial to maintaining the revolution’s momentum and challenge to junta rule,” reported the Irrawaddy. “The second city is the hub for military operations in the central region and reinforcements and supplies for upper Myanmar.”
Vicious military retaliation
Based on the past reactions of the Tatmadaw to such attacks, however, Mandalay could well suffer the same fate as Lashio, or worse, Thantlang.
Lashio resident Ko Tun describes how the onset of conflict drastically changed his city even early on: "As the war began, electricity went out, and roadblocks were set up, making it difficult to gather information and move around.”
He further recounts that although phone lines still worked, escaping the city became a monumental challenge. Blocked roads, heavy traffic, and the sheer difficulty of finding a safer place made every step perilous.
"Everything becomes more challenging when your life is at risk in such a situation," Ko Tun adds, highlighting the anxiety and danger that became daily realities.
He fled the city, but soon realized that staying connected to his hometown could be a way for him to hold on to a sense of normalcy, even as the world around him crumbled.
"I constantly tried to connect and stay updated on news from my hometown,” says Ko Tun. “I'd been homesick, missing the pleasant times I had in the city."
These days, the fighting has finally subsided in Lashio. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) has taken charge of the city and is now trying to put things in order there – restoring basic services, reopening hospitals, and even re-establishing Internet access.
Ko Tun himself has returned to Lashio. But like many others who have gone through experiences similar to his, he now carries a profound sense of loss, both of place and peace, as uncertainty about the future remains.
Jessy, the young woman who with her family fled the city at the height of the clashes between the MNDAA and the Tatmadaw, is back in Lashio as well.
She says that their home had been destroyed, and that they returned to streets still littered with the dead, with the stench of decay lingering in the air – a haunting reminder of the horrors they had escaped.
"It was definitely living hell," the 24-year-old says of what probably happened to Lashio after they left it.
While still unsure how Lashio will turn out under MNDAA rule, Jessy believes that anything would be better than living under military rule. At the very least, she, like many others, hopes that Lashio’s new chapter might bring a semblance of stability.
She is also among the many who are determined to see that their losses will not be for naught.
"Though I hate the war so much, the junta made the war inevitable,” Jessy says.” I want our losses to have meaning and for this war to end as soon as possible."
Daw Tin, a 40-year-old woman who lost her home in a village near Kawlin township and is currently at a camp for the internally displaced, says, "I can lose everything I have. But I cannot afford to lose the future of the generations after ours to military dictators.”
