Last week’s deadly earthquakes rocked a region of Myanmar already shattered by years of brutal conflict, exacerbating one of the world’s most overlooked wars and making relief efforts even more perilous, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A war-torn landscape meets disaster
Myanmar’s civil war began in 2021 after the military toppled the country’s elected government. Pro-democracy activists, mostly young and urban, joined forces with long-standing ethnic militias to resist the junta’s rule. Over the past year, rebel forces advanced deep into the country’s central regions—areas that were struck hardest by the recent 7.7 magnitude quake. Nationwide, more than 3,000 people have died.
Sagaing province, the quake’s epicenter, has suffered the most from the junta’s violent counteroffensives, including airstrikes and village burnings. Nearly a third of Myanmar’s 3.5 million displaced citizens were already in Sagaing before the earthquake hit. Now, the dual shock of war and natural disaster is pushing communities to the brink.
Blocked aid, broken bridges
Heavy destruction has been reported in Sagaing’s main city of 300,000 people. Satellite images show that two key bridges linking Sagaing to Mandalay have been badly damaged, hampering rescue operations. Telecommunication blackouts and road collapses are making it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage.
Aid groups fear the junta will obstruct humanitarian access to rebel-held areas, as it has in the past. An aid convoy from the Red Cross Society of China was reportedly fired upon by junta troops while en route to Mandalay. The junta claimed it had fired warning shots because the convoy did not stop in a conflict zone.