News
Report: Forest encroachment for maize cultivation increased in Lower Mekong
Industrial-scale maize cultivation to produce animal feed, one of the two main reasons behind annual smog in the three Lower Mekong countries, has grown on a massive scale, satellite data analysis has revealed. More than 11.8 million rai (4.7 million acres) of forested area in the ...
Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA
Rights group: Bangladesh failing to protect Rohingya against rising violence in camps
Bangladesh is not doing enough to protect Rohingya from increasing violence by armed groups and criminal gangs operating in the refugee camps near the country’s border with Myanmar, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. Some of these stateless refugees who fled from persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine ...
Ahammad Foyez and Abdur Rahman for BenarNews
Number of IDPs in Myanmar Has Surged Above 1.8 Million
The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) surpassed 1.8 million in war-ravaged Myanmar on June 12, 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Prior to the February 2021 military coup, the estimated number of internally displaced people was 328,000. They were in ...
THE IRRAWADDY
Myanmar Military Court Sentences Ex-Publisher to Five Years for Sedition
The former publisher of independent news outlet The Irrawaddy has been sentenced to five years in prison for sedition, marking the latest in a barrage of attacks on the press in Myanmar following the 2021 military coup. Thaung Win was sentenced by the military-controlled Western Yangon District Court ...
Liam Scott
Myanmar: Junta Blocks Lifesaving Cyclone Aid
(Bangkok) – The Myanmar junta’s increasing obstruction of humanitarian aid in the month since Cyclone Mocha has put thousands of lives at immediate risk and endangered millions of people, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the cyclone made landfall on May 14, 2023, junta authorities have refused ...
HRW
Airstrikes Kill Dozens in Central Myanmar
Dozens of people in coup-hit Myanmar’s central region were killed in airstrikes Tuesday, according to local media reports and a witness contacted by AFP. The country has been in chaos and its economy in tatters since the military seized power in February 2021. The death toll from ...
Agence France-Presse
Myanmar crisis cited as a challenge to regional efforts to save Mekong River
Myanmar’s ongoing crisis was raised as a possible hindrance to regional cooperation to save the Mekong River, as other countries along the important waterway pledged on Wednesday to strengthen collaboration in efforts to conserve the water resource. At the quadrennial Mekong River Commission (MRC) Summit in ...
Tan Hui Yee
Malaysia deports 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals, including children, their lawyer says
Malaysia has deported 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals who will be persecuted by the ruling military when they return, although they are not Rohingya, their lawyer said Thursday. Amnesty International Malaysia said Kuala Lumpur returned the Myanmar nationals to their strife-torn country, despite condemning the Burmese junta’s ...
Iman Muttaqin Yusof and Iskandar Zulkarnain for BenarNews
Myanmar: Abuses Mount Since Military Coup
Myanmar’s junta has been responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity since the military coup in February 2021, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2023. The security forces have been implicated in mass killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, sexual violence, and attacks on civilians in ...
Myanmar junta discusses elections with ethnic groups
Myanmar’s military junta is holding talks with three ethnic rebel groups on staging elections in areas they control, a rebel spokesman said on Friday, as the military prepares for polls the United States has said will be a “sham.” The country has about 20 ethnic rebel ...