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Category: Myanmar

  • INTERVIEW: Why an Argentina court filed a warrant for Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest

    Read a version of this story in Burmese.

    Tomas Ojea Quintana is a human rights lawyer who served as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar between 2008 and 2014.

    He represents the Burmese Rohingya Organization U.K., which filed a case in an Argentine court in 2019 that allege genocide and crimes against humanity were committed by senior Myanmar military officials against Rohingya Muslims.

    In an interview with RFA, attorney Tomas Ojea Quintana shares why Argentina issued arrest warrants for Myanmar’s leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

    Last week, Quintana told RFA that the Argentinian court had issued an arrest warrant for those named in the suit, including the de facto leader of the democratically-elected government, Aung San Suu Kyi.

    She was deposed when the military took over the country in a 2021 coup and is believed to be under house arrest but the junta has not disclosed her exact location.

    The Argentine suit was filed under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” enshrined in Argentina’s constitution, which holds that some crimes are so heinous that alleged perpetrators thousands of miles away can be tried.

    Members of the deposed civilian government are named in the suit because they were in charge of the government in 2017, and Aung San Suu Kyi defended the military’s actions in 2019 to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands.

    Members of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, made up of other leaders deposed by the coup and their allies, have requested that Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders be removed from the arrest warrant because the Rohingya could be unfairly blamed for adding a blemish to the reputation of Myanmar’s most popular political figure. But Quintana said the court decided that she and the others must be included to show that the court is impartial.

    The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    RFA: In our interview last year, you predicted that the Argentinian court would issue an arrest warrant for Aung San Suu Kyi and the others. Now, it has been realized. How significant do you think this warrant is for the Rohingya?

    Quintana: We predicted that the Argentinian court would issue a warrant because we have been working very hard bringing evidence to the file in Argentina, bringing witnesses in person to give testimony, survivors to give testimony, to the court. And finally, the court understood what was at stake, which is the genocide against the Rohingya people.

    And that’s why, after a request from the prosecutor and also a request from the Rohingya themselves, the court decided to issue this arrest warrant against 25 individuals.

    And you are asking me how significant this is. I would say that we should ask the Rohingya community how they feel about it. My thought is that the Rohingya really welcome this decision because basically this decision recognizes the truth about the genocide committed in Burma in 2017.

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    It is the first step towards justice, in identifying the perpetrator and issuing international warrants to bring them to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to be accountable to the Argentinian court. This is a first step and I think is very significant, not only for the Rohingya but also for the overall Burmese community and for the other ethnic minorities. Because all of them have been facing and suffering decades of human rights abuses by the military in Myanmar.

    RFA: The arrest warrant from Argentinian court includes Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Htin Kyaw. In this regard, the Rohingya activists who have filed the lawsuit told RFA that they included the civilian leaders’ names in the original filing in 2019. But after the military coup in 2021, they reviewed the decision. And in December 2023, they requested that the court exclude their names from the arrest warrant. But it still included their names when it was release. Can you tell me what happened?

    Quintana: I would be very transparent in what the position of Burmese Rohingya Organization U.K. is and what my position is as their attorney. In fact, in the 2019 complaint, the Burmese Refugee Organization U.K. decided to describe what happened in Burma for decades and in particular in 2017, naming all those who might have been responsible, and that would include those who executed orders and issued the orders.

    I’m talking about the military, but also all others who have had some level of responsibility. I’m talking about civilians and any leaders and so on and so forth.

    We have been working with the court here in Argentina, providing evidence about the responsibility of the military. And that’s why … we made a request to the court of arrest warrants. We included the military because we understood that, due to the coup in Burma in 2021,… Aung San Suu Kyi has been persecuted by the military.

    I should say that I met her in Burma three times in different circumstances. I know Aung San Suu Kyi.

    Now while we are talking, she’s incarcerated. We thought that it was convenient in this first stage of the procedure in Argentina, the judicial procedure to target the military while they are still in power in Burma. Now, the court decided otherwise here.

    Bear in mind how Aung San Suu Kyi reacted in 2017. Bear in mind that in 2017, the government officially was a civilian government, regardless of the lack of direct control that the civilian government had over the military….

    Bear in mind that even during that time, in 2016 and 2017, the Rohingya continued to face this grave and systematic discrimination, restricting access to basic livelihoods, access to food and health, etc. Finally bearing in mind what Aung San Suu Kyi said before the International Court of Justice during the proceedings (in 2019) where she defended the military and the ethnic cleansing operations.

    All these reasons made the court decide to include her in the list of arrest warrants. The 25 listed warrants therefore include Aung San Suu Kyi.

    RFA: The National Unity Government called for removal of the civilian leader’s names from the arrest warrant list. What would be your response?

    Quintana: Frankly speaking, what we have been receiving is support in general, from not only ethnic groups, but also Burmese people about these arrest warrants.

    I can recall one of those messages where they say that if the court would exclude Aung San Suu Kyi from the arrest warrant, that will send the wrong message to the outside world about the lack of impartiality of the Argentinian court.

    So, in general, the messages support the list of warrants. We know that others, and especially the NUG has made some observations about her being included in the warrant and even suggesting to exclude her. But that’s out of our hands. This is a decision of the jurisdiction. The court is an independent, impartial court that will respect basic rights of defendants.

    Everyone will have the right to defend themselves here with an attorney, and it’s out of our hands to take her out of the list. We tried that before the warrants were issued as I said before.

    We met the court, and we explained to the court the risk that the Rohingya may face if Aung San Suu Kyi is included in the list because the Rohingya may be blamed for her being included in the list. But the court decided they want to keep in mind the whole picture and the history of the facts.

    RFA: By being included in the arrest warrant list, does it mean that the civilian leaders should have the same level of responsibility (as the military) for the crimes committed against the Rohingya?

    Quintana: The criminal process here is just starting. This is a first step to issue arrest warrants. And then the court will determine the nature and the kind of responsibility that each of the perpetrators have. In our view, there is a clear distinction between the responsibility of the military who planned and ordered the ethnic cleansing operations and committed the crimes on the ground, killing Rohingyas, raping women, burning down villages and so on and so forth.

    The responsibility of the civilian government is different, and it will be for the court to determine what is the level of complicity of the civilian authorities with this genocide.

    RFA: Learning from the past, lawsuits filed under the universal jurisdiction do not go very far to the point of actual arrest, extradition, or conviction and sentencing. How far do you think this case will go?

    Quintana: The lawsuit should go as far as it can because the Rohingya are pursuing justice. And justice means to have a public trial where the victims can express their grievances. And then the court will issue a sentence that could be a conviction.

    Look, when the case was filed in 2019. Most people were reluctant, were pessimistic about the challenge of bringing a universal jurisdiction case in Argentina. I remember very well that it was 2019. People were saying “What were you aiming at? I mean, nothing will happen.” And the reality is that throughout these years, a lot of things have been achieved.

    First, empowerment of the Rohingya people and the notion that they deserve justice and they can do action to achieve justice. And now we have an arrest warrant, an international arrest warrant. Very soon it will go to Interpol. So this international organization will get involved, and we will work hard with all partners.

    Basically we encourage the international community, and all members of the United Nations. The United Nations has been passing resolutions for many years condemning the crimes of the military, condemning the genocide of the Rohingya.

    Now, this is the time for all of those countries to basically respond to that commitment and to take action. So we’ll see how the developments go. We’ll see what will happen with these perpetrators. The military should immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi so she can start working on her defense for the case here.

    So we urge the military to release Aung San Suu Kyi from prison so she can respond to the Argentinian court. There are a lot of challenges, of course, and obstacles, but they also a lot of opportunities. We are raising the bar of commitment towards accountability. In this turmoil(-filled) world, where everything is under question, it is very important to have this arrest warrant, because it’s a reaffirmation of what we believe is important, which is respect and protection of human rights.

    Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar flip flop factory falls on hard times | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar flip flop factory falls on hard times | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Junta blockade on medicine leaves Myanmar’s displaced reeling

    Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese.

    Junta restrictions on the transport of medicine in Myanmar’s war-torn regions of Rakhine, Chin and Sagaing in the north and west have led to shortages for displaced civilians dealing with outbreaks of disease, sources told RFA Burmese.

    The restrictions are the latest attempt by the junta to keep medical supplies from reaching rebel groups it has been fighting since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

    But rights organizations said the transport ban largely hurts civilians who have fled conflict and likened it to a “war crime.”

    Across the country, the civil war has left more than 3.5 million people displaced within Myanmar as of Feb. 17, the United Nations said.

    More than 10,000 internally displaced persons, or IDPs, are suffering from diarrhea and skin diseases in the southern part of Sagaing region’s Kalay township alone, a person who fled fighting in the area told RFA Burmese on Monday.

    The person said that the conditions are largely due to contaminated water and people “urgently need medicine.”

    “Due to their poor and unhygienic living conditions, IDPs are highly vulnerable to seasonal diseases,” said the source who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “The junta is the root cause of these health crises, as they have blocked and seized essential medical supplies to the conflict torn areas.”

    More than 200 displaced people were suffering from diarrhea in early February, resulting in three deaths, residents of Kalay told RFA. Travel to three affected villages has been restricted, they said.

    No capacity to treat serious diseases

    Displaced people from Chin state’s Paletwa township, who are taking shelter in refugee camps across the border in India’s Mizoram state are also facing hardships due to a lack of medicine, a refugee told RFA.

    “Most IDP camps along the border lack access to healthcare and urgently need medicine,” said the refugee, who also declined to be named. “As the number of displaced people continues to rise daily, the demand for medical supplies has also increased. Paletwa township is facing a severe shortage of essential medicines.”

    Although medical teams and residents are providing public health care services in some areas of Chin state, they “lack the capacity to treat chronic and infectious diseases effectively,” he said.

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    The shortages have forced many residents of Chin to cross the border in search of hospitals in Mizoram, Salai Van Sui San, the deputy director of the Institute of Chin Affairs, told RFA.

    “If a diarrhea outbreak occurs, it will quickly spread throughout an IDP camp,” he said. “With no access to medical treatment in these areas, residents rely on NGOs for healthcare services.”

    Chronically ill ‘are dying’

    The junta has also completely blocked the transportation of medicine in Rakhine state, residents said Monday, noting that patients returning to the state capital Sittwe after receiving treatment in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon are “only allowed to bring medicine prescribed by their doctor.”

    “Due to restrictions on medical transportation, people with chronic illnesses are dying,” said Win Naing, a resident of Rakhine’s Maungdaw township. “Some medicines are imported into Rakhine state via routes from India and Bangladesh, but those in urgent need still face severe difficulties.”

    A patient suffering from diarrhea in Banhtwei village, Mindat township, in Chin state, Myanmar, June 28, 2024.
    A patient suffering from diarrhea in Banhtwei village, Mindat township, in Chin state, Myanmar, June 28, 2024.
    (Citizen Photo)

    A 10-tablet pack of paracetamol, used to treat fever and mild to moderate pain, now costs up to 5,000 kyats (US$2.40) in Rakhine state, he said — a 10-fold increase from before the coup.

    Restricting medicine ‘is a war crime’

    Salai Mang Hre Lian, the managing officer of the Chin Human Rights Organization, told RFA that the junta’s blocking of medical treatment amounts to a war crime.

    “We’ve witnessed so many cases of denied medical treatment [since the coup], and we can say that the junta is bluntly violating our people’s right to life and committing war crimes,” he said.

    Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokespersons Nyunt Win Aung for Sagaing region, Hla Thein for Rakhine state, and Aung Cho for Chin state for comment on the restrictions went unanswered Monday.

    According to a Feb. 14 report by ReliefWeb, a group funded by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that regularly publishes updates on humanitarian situations worldwide, nearly 140 health workers have been killed and approximately 840 arrested in Myanmar since the coup.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘I had to cut off the head, bro’: Myanmar soldiers swap slaughter stories

    >>> Read story in special page

    Editor’s note: This story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

    By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese

    Aug. 10, 2021

    Two armed men stand behind a tangle of bodies leaking blood which congeals in the dust. Each of the five victims is blindfolded, hands tied behind their back, and appear to have been killed by gunfire or a blade to the throat. The armed men – one with his rifle slung over his shoulder and the other smoking a cigarette – strike a nonchalant pose that is recorded for posterity in a series of grisly photos captured on a soldier’s phone.

    These graphic images are among a cache of files recently obtained by RFA Burmese that document atrocities apparently committed by soldiers during military operations in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region. The files include a video in which those two same armed men brag about how many people they have killed, and how they have killed them.

    The content was retrieved from a cell phone that was found by a villager in Sagaing’s Ayadaw township where the military had been conducting raids amid an offensive against the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group. An intermediary who obtained the video and photos forwarded them to RFA in Washington.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnamese monk weighs danger of crossing Myanmar on India journey

    NONG BUA, Thailand – Resting after a long day of walking barefoot across the Thai countryside, Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue sat on a mat under a tree and talked quietly about the purpose — and logistics — of his 2,700-kilometer (1,600 mile) pilgrimage to India.

    “I want to be grateful to Buddha, who has shown me and others the path of learning,” Minh Tue told a Radio Free Asia reporter who caught up with him and his entourage last week at Wat Udom Pattana temple in Nakhon Sawan province.

    “I want to walk there to repay his gratitude and hope that all people in the world will be happy and peaceful and learn according to Buddha’s teachings,” he said.

    VIDEO: Conflict-ridden Myanmar is potentially the most dangerous part of Thich Minh Tue journey.

    Thich Minh Tue is a Buddhist monk who captured hearts in Vietnam last year when he undertook a barefoot hike across the country that met the disapproval of controlling communist authorities.

    He has since gone international. In December, he crossed from Vietnam into Laos before entering Thailand.

    His goal is to reach India, the birthplace of Buddhism.

    Sporting a patched, multicolored robe, rather than a typical saffron one, the 43-year-old cuts an unassuming figure as he walks across Thailand, accompanied by about 16 monks. He carries a rice cooker pot as an alms bowl.

    But after two months of walking about 20 kilometers (12 miles) a day on scorching asphalt, the hurdles are piling up. The hot season is starting, and smog from burning of crops pollutes the grey skies.

    Plus, his Thai visa runs out in a week and a knee injury sustained by a monk in his entourage is slowing his group’s march.

    Myanmar strife

    A bigger dilemma faces the monk, who typically stops overnight at Buddhist temples that dot the Thai countryside, or if not, stretches out on a mat amid the mosquitoes and under the stars in a roadside field.

    How can he get across Myanmar — gripped by a civil war — to India?

    Some of the monks’s supporters, as well as Myanmar dissidents who are well-informed about their country’s troubles, say he wouldn’t make it across that country.

    As of Wednesday, he and his entourage were some 330 kilometers (200 miles) from Mae Sot, the western Thai border crossing to Myanmar, and 600 kilometers (375 miles) to the northern border crossing at Mae Sai.

    A Vietnamese monk's pilgrimage
    A Vietnamese monk’s pilgrimage
    (RFA)

    Minh Tue — “Thich” indicates he’s a monk — said he intended to avoid the closer Mae Sot crossing, citing fighting in the area between rebels and the Myanmar military, which seized power in a 2021 coup and has been embroiled in a multi-front civil war ever since.

    Instead, he said he was leaning towards crossing at Mae Sai, in Thailand’s far north, into Myanmar’s Shan state.

    But much of Myanmar is in the throes of conflict and it’s not clear whether Tue and his entourage would be safe even if they take the alternative route, which involves a major detour.

    VIDEO: RFA Vietnamese’s Truong Son explains monk Thich Minh Tue arrival in Thailand from Laos.

    The naysayers contend he’d either be refused entry to Myanmar, or, if allowed in, it would be only a matter of time before he’d run into some sort of obstacle.

    Moe Kyaw, a labor rights activist and veteran Myanmar dissident living in Thailand, said he’d rate the monk’s chance of crossing Myanmar at 1%.

    “There’d be too many challenges. I simply don’t think it’s possible,” he told RFA.

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    Another expert on Myanmar, human rights campaigner David Mathieson, said he doubted Myanmar’s military would allow Minh Tue in, both because of the “completely chaotic security landscape” and because he could attract crowds, which the unpopular junta would be wary of.

    “I don’t think that the sakasa really wants to take the risk of people coming out to see him,” Mathieson said, referring to the junta. “They probably also don’t want to take the risk of having him or his followers injured by an airstrike or by a drone or landmine.”

    But if Minh Tue were to bypass Myanmar, how would he complete his pilgrimage?

    Alms from villagers

    Last year, Minh Tue’s ascetic demeanor struck a chord in Vietnam where social media posts of his barefoot walks went viral and well-wishers came out in droves.

    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue walks during alms rounds in Nong Bua, Nakhon Sawan province, Thailand, Feb. 13, 2025.
    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue walks during alms rounds in Nong Bua, Nakhon Sawan province, Thailand, Feb. 13, 2025.
    (Pimuk Rakkanam/RFA)

    Vietnam’s state-sanctioned Buddhist sangha has not officially recognized him as a monk, but he has nonetheless garnered widespread admiration and support.

    At one point, Vietnamese authorities, leery of his popularity, announced he had “voluntarily retired.” But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

    Though he much less well-known in Thailand, villagers come out to greet the him and offer alms of vegetarian food in the mornings. Along the way, people give the group water and policemen pay their respects.

    Vietnamese reporting the trip on their social media channels and overseas Vietnamese supporters gather around their “teacher” when they get the chance.

    Minh Tue told RFA that Buddhist teachings inspired him to practice “dhutanga,” or austerity, on his journey to India.

    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue walks during alms rounds in Nong Bua, Nakhon Sawan province, Thailand, Feb. 13, 2025.
    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue walks during alms rounds in Nong Bua, Nakhon Sawan province, Thailand, Feb. 13, 2025.
    (Pimuk Rakkanam/RFA)

    While he espouses Buddhist philosophy, authorities in Vietnam are suspicious of any political motive.

    His name has come up in connection with a U.S.-based opposition party-in-exile called Viet Tan that aims to transition the country from communism to a liberal democracy, said a Thai security officer monitoring the monk’s journey.

    Attempts by RFA to reach Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to clarify whether Tue’s visa could be extended have gone unanswered.

    Doan Van Bau, a former Vietnamese security officer who has said he was assigned by his government to protect Minh Tue and be “head of delegation,” was walking with him for a few weeks, but is no longer with the group apparently after a dispute with the monks.

    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue is followed by his bodyguard Doan Van Bau, right, as he walks through Thailand on his way to India, in January 2025.
    Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue is followed by his bodyguard Doan Van Bau, right, as he walks through Thailand on his way to India, in January 2025.
    (RFA)

    Bau has helped Minh Tue and two other monks get visas for Bangladesh and India and he has urged them to avoid Myanmar altogether and fly over it, members of the entourage said.

    Minh Tue has said he does not know how many of the monks in his entourage would follow him into Myanmar, if he were to choose that option.

    He has also raised the possibility of bypassing Myanmar entirely by flying to Sri Lanka, and then going on to India, tracing the route in reverse along which Buddhism first arrived in Thailand.

    “If the route crossing into Myanmar is convenient, then I will walk from Thailand into Myanmar,” he said. “If Sri Lanka is better, then I will take this route.”

    The uncertainty over the route has sparked some friction among members of the entourage, adding to a sense of anxiety.

    But that doesn’t seem to affect Minh Tue.

    “What will be, will be,” he told RFA. “Whichever side is favorable, I’ll walk there.”

    Translated by RFA Vietnamese and RFA Burmese. Edited by Joshua Lipes, Mat Pennington and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar scam center survivors recall torture and coercion | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar scam center survivors recall torture and coercion | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

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  • Escaping the chaos of home, Myanmar migrants face exploitation abroad

    By Nayrein Kyaw and Gemunu Amarasinghe

    Dec. 21, 2022

    Forced to flee her Magway village in southeast Myanmar during a junta attack, Theingi Soe spent a “terrible” month living in makeshift shelters in the jungle during the rainy season. In her misery, she began to plot another escape – to a life in a country beyond the conflict.

    An acquaintance put her in touch with a hiring agent in Yangon who promised work in Dubai. She paid 1 million kyats (U.S. $476) upfront to be connected to a family in need of domestic help, bought her own plane ticket, and arrived in her new home on Dec. 26, 2021, nervous but hopeful she would find a measure of stability among the city’s gleaming high rises and shining shopping malls.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Nayrein Kyaw and Gemunu Amarasinghe.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China repatriates 200 citizens from Myanmar scam centers amid crackdown

    MAE SOT, Thailand – Two hundred Chinese nationals were due to be flown to their homeland on Thursday in aircraft laid on by their government after leaving online fraud centers in an eastern Myanmar district on the border with Thailand, Thai officials said.

    The Chinese people were brought on buses, 50 at a time, from Myanmar’s Myawaddy district, over a border bridge to the Thai town of Mae Sot, and then taken to a nearby airport for their flight home, witnesses said.

    “Myanmar authorities and the Border Guard Force have brought Chinese nationals to the second Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge, and are handing them over to Thai officials,” Maj. Gen. Maitree Chupreecha, commander of the Thai military’s Naresuan Task Force, told reporters.

    “A total of 200 people will be repatriated today in groups of 50 every two hours,” he said.

    It was not clear if the people being flown back to China were organizers of the online fraud that has proliferated in recent years in Myanmar and other parts of Southeast Asia, or were victims of human traffickers and forced to work in the centers defrauding people online and over the telephone.

    A first flight left Mae Sot bound for China shortly before noon and three more were due to leave through the day. More flights to China are due on Friday and Saturday, taking more than 1,000 Chinese people home, Thai officials said.

    Thursday’s flights were the latest in a series of actions over recent weeks aimed at ending the scam center operations that have flourished largely unimpeded in different parts of Southeast Asia for several years.

    The scamming, known as “pig butchering” in China, involves making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a relationship with them and then defrauding them. Researchers say billions of dollars have been stolen this way from victims around the world.

    Huge fraud operation complexes are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work, sometimes under threat of violence, rescued workers and rights groups say.

    Researchers have said governments and businesses across the region have been enabling the operations by failing to take action against the profitable flows they generate.

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    Thousands of victims

    But that has changed in recent weeks amid a blizzard of bad publicity triggered by the kidnap and rescue last month of Chinese actor Wang Xing, who was lured to work one of Myawaddy’s fraud operations.

    The growing public alarm across Asia about kidnapping and forced labor threatened to damage Thailand’s tourist industry and forced China to insist on action by authorities in its southern neighbors to crack down.

    China’s Assistant Minister of Public Security Liu Zhongyi visited Thailand in late January to focus efforts to combat the call center operations and the human trafficking that supplies their labor force.

    Thailand took its most decisive action ever against the fraud networks on Feb. 5, cutting cross-border power and internet services and blocking fuel exports to the Myanmar scam zones.

    The Myanmar junta also stopped fuel shipments to the Myawaddy district controlled by an ethnic minority militia force that is allied with the military government.

    The ethnic Karen militia that controls Myawaddy and has been hosting and profiting from the online fraud operations said last month it was going to stop fraud and forced labor and send back thousands of the people who have been working in the centers.

    A Thai activist group, the Civil Society Network for Victim Assistance in Human Trafficking, which has been helping scam center victims, said it has identified at least 2,000 people from more than a dozen countries forced to work at defrauding people around the world.

    But many thousands more people are believed to be still in the scam centers, in eastern Myanmar and beyond.

    A Thai member of parliament and head of its National Security Committee said it was important to gather as much information as possible from people being brought out of the scam centers to identify the kingpins and end their operations once and for all.

    “We need to gather information,” legislator Rangsiman Rome told reporters.

    “We must verify if they are victims or criminals and whether they know who is behind the call center gangs. This information is crucial for dismantling the transnational crime syndicates,” said Rangsiman.

    Edited by Mike Firn.

    RFA Burmese Service contributed to this report.

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Nontarat Phaicharoen for BenarNews and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Rohingya in limbo as some aid groups suspend health services at Bangladesh camps

    DHAKA/COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh – At a Rohingya refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh, Mohammed Hasan cast doubt over whether he’d ever walk again.

    The 40-year-old had a leg amputated after a Burmese soldier shot him during the Myanmar military’s deadly crackdown against the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017. Hasan’s other leg was paralyzed after the shooting.

    Like hundreds of thousands of his fellow Rohingya, he fled that year from his home in Rakhine state to neighboring Bangladesh. There, a nongovernmental organization helped him with medical treatment, including physiotherapy.

    But all that is gone now.

    “Physiotherapy and other treatments at Handicap International revived my hope for being able to stand up again. But Handicap International ceased their operations, blowing my hopes,” Hasan told BenarNews this month.

    More than a dozen healthcare facilities that help Rohingya refugees have suspended operations in the past few weeks, leaving thousands without essential health services and exacerbating already dire conditions at sprawling camps in Cox’s Bazar district near the Myanmar border.

    Some Bangladeshi officials have attributed the closures to a decision last month by the new U.S. administration to freeze foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review of foreign assistance programs.

    Bangladeshi officials say the decision by the United States – the world’s largest single aid donor, according to the United Nations – has affected various services helping the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, including health, water and sanitation, education, and livelihood.

    In a filing with the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia on Feb. 18, the Trump administration said it would not release its foreign aid funds despite a federal judge’s order last week to lift its freeze, according to a copy of the court document seen by BenarNews.

    Three facilities run by the global nonprofit International Rescue Committee (IRC) have completely shut down while two others could stop operations by the end of March, an official of a Bangladeshi government agency overseeing the needs of refugees told BenarNews last week.

    “Apart from that, around 14 [Centre for Disability in Development, or CDD facilities] across the camps ceased their operations following the U.S. fund freeze that also laid off many healthcare staff,” Refugee, Relief and Repatriation (RRR) Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said.

    BenarNews visited five CDD facilities in Cox’s Bazar and found they had stopped their operations at present.

    Rohingya refugee Gulfaraz Begum with her son, Mohammed Hasan, who lost a leg in Myanmar military’s crackdown in 2017, at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    Rohingya refugee Gulfaraz Begum with her son, Mohammed Hasan, who lost a leg in Myanmar military’s crackdown in 2017, at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews)

    A medical officer working at a government hospital also told BenarNews that the health aid group Handicap International – which used to provide medical care for refugees such as Mohammed Hasan – had stopped its operations.

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    More than a million refugees

    Another health research group, the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B), had also suspended its operations to help the refugees, said Enamul Haque, a medical officer at the government-owned Teknaf Upzila Health Complex.

    “With these two centers shut down, patients are facing extreme difficulties. There is no other hospital except for the government hospital,” Enamul told BenarNews on Feb. 11.

    “In reality, there is nowhere for these patients to go … [P]oor patients are suffering the most,” he said.

    BenarNews tried to contact five organizations that had allegedly suspended their operations following the freeze on foreign aid implemented by the Trump administration, which took office on Jan. 20.

    Among the groups, IRC and ICDDR, B did not respond to multiple requests from BenarNews. Local officials with Handicap International, CDD, and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR declined comment.

    The locked gate of a facility of the Center for Disability in Development in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    The locked gate of a facility of the Center for Disability in Development in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews)

    More than 1 million Rohingya refugees are staying in camps in and around Cox’s Bazar – some of the largest and most densely populated refugee shelters in the world.

    There are 120 healthcare centers across 34 camps that often provide medical care for at least 70,000 Rohingya refugees, Mizanur, the RRR commissioner, said.

    “As the U.S. is the biggest funder [of foreign aid in Bangladesh], the fallout of the aid freeze could impact other medical facilities too in the [camps],” he said.

    An official involved with healthcare services in the camps said on Feb. 11 that the existing healthcare facilities for the refugees had scaled down their services by as much as 25% since the U.S. funding was paused.

    “We have observed service disruptions in the Rohingya refugee camps as well as in the host communities, including in life-saving interventions,” Syed Md Tafhim, a communications officer at the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), said in a statement.

    The ISCG serves as the international central coordination body for humanitarian agencies that serve Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.

    A Rohingya refugee with a disability, who used to receive medical treatment from an aid group, in a camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Feb. 10, 2025.
    A Rohingya refugee with a disability, who used to receive medical treatment from an aid group, in a camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Feb. 10, 2025.
    (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews)

    Affected services range across different sectors, such as health (including treatment for persons with disabilities), water and sanitation, education, and livelihood, the group said.

    “As a result of this global pause, preliminary information suggests that several important projects benefitting Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi host communities have had to be suspended, interrupting some essential and life-saving services,” the ISCG said.

    “While some exceptions and waivers are gradually being communicated by the U.S. Government, we do not yet have a detailed understanding of how this may affect specific programmes in the Rohingya response in the short and medium term,” it also said.

    According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the pause in funding would “invariably affect” its Rohingya refugee response.

    “The United States has been among our steady partners to the Rohingya response, and we remain both grateful and hopeful that funding support will soon resume to ensure refugee women and girls and those from the host community continue to receive critical assistance to uphold their health, safety, and dignity in Bangladesh,” UNFPA Bangladesh Representative Masaki Watabe said in a statement.

    Anxious parent

    Back in the refugee camps, a Rohingya father waits.

    In their small hut made of bamboo and tarpaulin at Camp 16, Kabir Hossen lives with his son, Md Hasan, who has a paralyzed leg and struggles with a form of palsy.

    Rohingya refugee Kabir Hossen is seen with his son, Md Hasan, who has a paralyzed leg and struggles with a form of palsy, at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    Rohingya refugee Kabir Hossen is seen with his son, Md Hasan, who has a paralyzed leg and struggles with a form of palsy, at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 10, 2025.
    (Abdur Rahman/BenarNews)

    Every 10 days, they used to visit a CDD facility for his treatment and medicine. But on Feb. 1, the center’s staff turned them away, saying they already stopped providing services.

    “I don’t know where to avail the treatment for my son,” Hossen, 47, told BenarNews.

    “Uncertainty is gripping me.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mostafa Yousuf and Abdur Rahman for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam monk Thích Minh Tuệ debates trek through Myanmar on pilgrimage to India | Radio Free Asia


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • 10 arrested in killing of Catholic priest: Myanmar’s shadow government

    Read this story in Burmese

    Ten members of a rebel group have been arrested in the stabbing death of a Catholic priest last week in the Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region, the country’s government-in-exile said.

    Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, 44, is believed to be the first Catholic priest killed in the conflict that erupted four years ago when the military ousted the elected government in a February 2021 coup.

    He was attacked on Feb. 14 in the compound of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Kan Gyi Taw village in Shwebo township, which is about 65 km (40 miles) north of Mandalay, the National Unity Government, or NUG, said in a statement Monday.

    The 10 suspects were captured by the Shwebo branch of its armed People’s Defense Force and members of other local rebel groups on the day of the killing.

    NUG was established by pro-democracy politicians after the 2021 coup and is Myanmar’s main opposition organization.

    Because the suspects are members of local defense forces, the NUG’s shadow Defense Ministry is conducting a court-martial, it said Monday.

    Christians make up about 6 percent of Myanmar’s population, while some 90 percent are Buddhists.

    Suspected informer

    NUG said it “strongly condemns any acts of targeting civilians, including religious leaders.”

    The statement didn’t include a reason for the attack, but Myanmar Now reported that Ye Naing Win was suspected of being an informer for the military junta.

    Sagaing, a heartland region populated largely by members of the majority Burman community, has been torn by violence since democracy activists set up the defense forces to battle the military after the 2021 coup.

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    Cardinal Charles Bo, the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, said he hoped Ye Naing Win’s death and “the blood and sacrifices” of other innocent people could serve as “an offering to ending the violence that is occurring throughout the nation.”

    “Learning from these heartbreaking experiences that we have encountered, may the fraternal spirit be awakened, and we earnestly appeal for an end to the violence,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

    “The wrongdoing committed against Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win is not something that can be easily forgotten.”

    Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar adopts law for foreign firms to provide armed security

    Myanmar’s military government has adopted a law allowing foreign companies to provide armed security services, which analysts suspect will lead to former military personnel from China protecting its extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor.

    The law raises the prospect of Chinese private military corporations guarding oil and gas pipelines from Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast to Yunnan province, and ensuring uninterrupted supplies in the event of war in the South China Sea blocking regular shipping routes.

    The Private Security Service Law, published in state-run media on Tuesday, states that foreign companies seeking a license to set up a security company must be registered under the Myanmar Companies Law.

    The National Defence and Security Council must approve a company “holding arms and ammunition due to work demand in providing private security services,” states the law, signed by the leader of the junta that seized power in 2021, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

    The legislation stipulates that companies must ensure that staff are “not a member of any armed forces of a foreign country.” Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution rules out foreign forces operating in the country.

    The law also requires that “at least 75% of the hired private security servants must be Myanmar citizens,” and companies providing private security services have to abide by existing laws on weapons.

    China has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, many of them linked to a long-planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor between China’s Yunnan and Myanmar’s coast.

    The corridor is part of Beijing’s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative of energy and trade-facilitating infrastructure projects.

    They include a special economic zone and proposed deep-water port, with oil and gas facilities, in Kyaukpyu in Rakhine state, 800-kilometer (500-mile) oil and gas pipelines that extend to Kunming in southwest China, copper jade and rare earth mines and hydro-electric plants.

    While the embattled military still holds Kyaukpyu, many of the other projects are in areas that have come under the control of anti-junta forces battling to end military rule since the generals overthrew a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

    While the civil war has delayed Chinese projects, insurgent forces, some of which maintain contacts with China, have not launched major attacks on pipelines and other facilities, and have even promised to protect them.

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    ‘Selling out’

    Analysts said the new law sets out the legal framework for a Chinese proposal to set up a China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company, as reported in the military’s Myanmar Gazette on Nov. 8.

    Lawyer Gyi Myint said the law reflected the junta’s determination to get China’s economic projects implemented by relying on Chinese security help.

    “We have reached a situation where the military has allowed things that are not allowed internationally. This is not in line with the 2008 constitution,” Gyi Myint told Radio Free Asia from an undisclosed location.

    Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the law would allow former members of China’s People’s Liberation Army to operate legally in Myanmar.

    “The junta council is selling out to China for nothing even though it is constantly talking about sovereignty,” he told RFA.

    RFA tried to contact the junta council’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to inquire about the criticism of the law but he did not answer the telephone.

    The military council has not said when the proposed China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company would be set up.

    The Burmese-language Khit Thit Media reported late last year that a deal to establish a Chinese private military corporation in Kyaukpyu was signed in November between a Special Economic Zone management sub-committee and officials from the Chinese CITIC Group Company.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar adopts law for foreign firms to provide armed security

    Myanmar’s military government has adopted a law allowing foreign companies to provide armed security services, which analysts suspect will lead to former military personnel from China protecting its extensive economic interests in its southern neighbor.

    The law raises the prospect of Chinese private military corporations guarding oil and gas pipelines from Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast to Yunnan province, and ensuring uninterrupted supplies in the event of war in the South China Sea blocking regular shipping routes.

    The Private Security Service Law, published in state-run media on Tuesday, states that foreign companies seeking a license to set up a security company must be registered under the Myanmar Companies Law.

    The National Defence and Security Council must approve a company “holding arms and ammunition due to work demand in providing private security services,” states the law, signed by the leader of the junta that seized power in 2021, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

    The legislation stipulates that companies must ensure that staff are “not a member of any armed forces of a foreign country.” Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 constitution rules out foreign forces operating in the country.

    The law also requires that “at least 75% of the hired private security servants must be Myanmar citizens,” and companies providing private security services have to abide by existing laws on weapons.

    China has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, many of them linked to a long-planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor between China’s Yunnan and Myanmar’s coast.

    The corridor is part of Beijing’s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative of energy and trade-facilitating infrastructure projects.

    They include a special economic zone and proposed deep-water port, with oil and gas facilities, in Kyaukpyu in Rakhine state, 800-kilometer (500-mile) oil and gas pipelines that extend to Kunming in southwest China, copper jade and rare earth mines and hydro-electric plants.

    While the embattled military still holds Kyaukpyu, many of the other projects are in areas that have come under the control of anti-junta forces battling to end military rule since the generals overthrew a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

    While the civil war has delayed Chinese projects, insurgent forces, some of which maintain contacts with China, have not launched major attacks on pipelines and other facilities, and have even promised to protect them.

    RELATED STORIES

    Arakan Army closing in on capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state

    Myanmar junta chief seeks China’s help on border stability

    Trump extends ‘national emergency’ declaration for Myanmar

    ‘Selling out’

    Analysts said the new law sets out the legal framework for a Chinese proposal to set up a China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company, as reported in the military’s Myanmar Gazette on Nov. 8.

    Lawyer Gyi Myint said the law reflected the junta’s determination to get China’s economic projects implemented by relying on Chinese security help.

    “We have reached a situation where the military has allowed things that are not allowed internationally. This is not in line with the 2008 constitution,” Gyi Myint told Radio Free Asia from an undisclosed location.

    Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the law would allow former members of China’s People’s Liberation Army to operate legally in Myanmar.

    “The junta council is selling out to China for nothing even though it is constantly talking about sovereignty,” he told RFA.

    RFA tried to contact the junta council’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, to inquire about the criticism of the law but he did not answer the telephone.

    The military council has not said when the proposed China-Myanmar Joint Venture Security Company would be set up.

    The Burmese-language Khit Thit Media reported late last year that a deal to establish a Chinese private military corporation in Kyaukpyu was signed in November between a Special Economic Zone management sub-committee and officials from the Chinese CITIC Group Company.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Arakan Army closing in on capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state

    The rebel Arakan Army is closing in on Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, firing artillery on military junta outposts outside the city and preparing for an assault, residents told Radio Free Asia.

    Residents have been fleeing from Sittwe’s outskirts since January, but now aren’t able to escape because junta forces have blocked all exit routes, said Wai Hin Aung, an aid worker in the city. “The blockade has led to this fighting, with the use of heavy weapons,” he said.

    The rebel ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, has made significant gains over the past year in its bid to root the military out of Rakhine state in its bid for self-determination.

    Of the 17 townships in Rakhine state, 14 are under the control of the AA, leaving only three still in the hands of the military junta – Kyaukphyu, Munaung and Sittwe, where the junta’s regional headquarters is based.

    Sittwe is crucial for the junta – which seized control of Myanmar in a 2021 coup d’état – not only as a source of much-needed revenue and foreign currency, but also for its role in Myanmar’s oil and gas trade via the Indian Ocean.

    If Sittwe falls, it would be the latest and one of the most significant defeats for the junta, which has been pushed back across the country by various ethnic armies and armed citizens who have formed militias called Peoples Defense Forces, or PDF.

    Junta forces have countered with artillery attacks and airstrikes on areas in Sittwe and two nearby towns where they believe that AA troops are stationed, a resident said, speaking anonymously for security reasons.

    Firing on naval vessels

    The Arakan Army also fired on junta vessels at a river naval base, a Sittwe resident told Radio Free Asia.

    The AA began firing at around 5 p.m., and junta fighter planes responded by dropping bombs on AA positions at about 9 p.m., he said. Several junta soldiers were wounded in the AA attack and were taken to a Sittwe hospital.

    “The explosions were quite strong,” he said. “The junta dropped about three big bombs. Then they started firing with a series of missiles.”

    A Myanmar junta armored vehicle burns after Arakan Army forces attacked a column that left Sittwe in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Feb. 28, 2024.
    A Myanmar junta armored vehicle burns after Arakan Army forces attacked a column that left Sittwe in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Feb. 28, 2024.
    (Image from AA Info Desk video/Arakan Army Info Desk)

    The junta has recently reinforced its forces in and around Sittwe, and has also provided military training to thousands of Rohingya – a stateless ethnic group that predominantly follows Islam and resides in Rakhine.

    A Sittwe resident and military analyst from Rakhine state told RFA that neither the AA nor the military junta will easily abandon Sittwe.

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    “The AA is unlikely to halt its attacks on Sittwe, and the military will not abandon the city,” he said. “That’s why intense fighting cannot be ruled out.”

    Rakhine State’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, didn’t answer his telephone when RFA tried to contact him for comment about the situation in Sittwe.

    AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha also didn’t immediately respond to a message left by RFA.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar junta frees nearly 1,000 Rohingya from prison, group says

    Myanmar’s military government has released from prison nearly 1,000 members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, a human rights group said on Monday, a rare gesture of goodwill towards the persecuted community.

    The junta has not announced the release and there has been no explanation as to why they were set free but it comes days after a court in Argentina called for arrest warrants for the junta chief and 22 other military officials for crimes committed against the Rohingya in a 2017 crackdown.

    “It is clear that the junta wants to cover up the crimes that they’ve committed against Rohingya,” said a senior member of group Political Prisoners Network Myanmar, Thike Htun Oo.

    “They immediately released the Rohingya from detention as soon as a court in Argentina issued international arrest warrants for them. We must be aware of this,” he told Radio Free Asia on Monday.

    Most of the 936 people being released on Sunday from prison in the main city of Yangon, including 267 women and 67 children, were arrested after the military overthrew an elected government in 2021, Thike Htun Oo said.

    They were due to be sent by boat from Yangon, to the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe in western Myanmar, he said.

    On Saturday, officials from the military’s Immigration Department entered Insein Prison in Yangon to issue the Rohingya with identity documents, Thike Htun Oo said, though adding he could not confirm exactly what type of documents they were given.

    Details of what those being released had done to be locked up in the first place were not available but most were believed to have been imprisoned for violating restrictions on their movements.

    RFA tried to telephone the Prison Department spokesperson and the office of the department’s deputy director general for information about the release but they did not answer.

    Most Rohingya are from Rakhine state and most are stateless, regarded as migrants from South Asia and not one of the ethnic groups classified as indigenous in Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s constitution.

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    Forced to fight?

    Myanmar government troops led a bloody crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017 in response to Rohingya militant attacks on the security forces and more than 700,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya community fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where most remain.

    U.N. experts later said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent.” The United States in 2022 determined that the violence committed against the Rohingya amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.

    The Myanmar military said it was engaged in legitimate security operations.

    A court in Argentina ruled last week that international arrest warrants should be issued for the self-appointed president and junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and 22 other military officials for crimes committed against the Rohingya.

    Argentina became the first country to open an investigation into serious crimes against the Rohingya under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal principle allowing for the prosecution of serious crimes no matter where they were committed.

    Political analyst Than Soe Naing also said the junta was trying to improve its image in light of the Argentinian court ruling.

    “They’re releasing the Rohingya in order to try to restore justice from their side but they’re not going to succeed in trying to cover up their criminal mistakes,” he said.

    The leader of a Rohingya welfare organization said there was a danger those being released would be pressed to fight for the military in Rakhine state where an ethnic minority insurgent group battling for control of the state, the Arakan Army, or AA, has forced junta forces into a few small pockets of territory, including Sittwe.

    The co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, Nay San Lwin, said the military was already pressing Rohingya men in camps for displaced people in Sittwe to join junta forces.

    “They are really worried about being forcibly recruited,” he said of those who had been released.

    Last year, embattled junta forces recruited Rohingya into militias to help fight the AA, which draws its support from the state’s Buddhist, ethnic Rakhine majority.

    The recruitment by the military of Rohingya led to attacks by the AA in which international human rights organizations said Rohingya civilians were killed. The AA denied that.

    Translated by Kianan Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.

    RELATED STORIES

    Myanmar junta bombs Rohingya Muslim village killing 41, rescuers say

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    Violence against the Rohingya explained


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Guy Horton obituary

    My friend Guy Horton, who has died aged 73, was a human rights defender, journalist and educator who spent much of his life dedicated to helping others, whether on the frontline of conflict, or mentoring young people such as myself.

    From 1998 to 2005, while working for the Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office (EBO), among others, Guy uncovered widespread human rights violations in eastern Myanmar against the Karen and Shan ethnic groups, following a 50-year war between the Burmese government and indigenous peoples. His 2005 report, Dying Alive, and supporting video footage was submitted to the UN security council in 2007. The UN committee on the prevention of genocide later carried out an investigation and placed Myanmar on the genocide watchlist.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Argentina court issues arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief

    Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

    A court in Argentina has issued an international arrest warrant for Myanmar’s self-appointed president and junta chief, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and other 22 military officials for crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority, activists told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

    The court also issued warrants for the arrest of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, who led a government when the military launched a campaign of repression against the Rohingya in 2017, and her colleague, former civilian president Htin Kyaw, the activists said.

    Suu Kyi and Htin Kyaw have both been imprisoned since the military overthrew their elected government in a coup in February 2021.

    The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, or BROUK, filed a petition in Argentina in 2019 on behalf of Rohingya victims and it became the first country to open an investigation into serious crimes against the Rohingya under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal principle allowing for the prosecution of serious crimes no matter where they were committed.

    “This is a historic step towards justice for Rohingya and everyone in Burma suffering under the Burmese military,” said Tun Khin, president of the BROUK, referring to Myanmar.

    Myanmar government troops led a bloody crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017 in response to Rohingya militant attacks on the security forces and some 700,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya community fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where most remain.

    The U.N. experts later said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent”. The United States in 2022 determined that the violence committed against the Rohingya amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.

    The Myanmar military has always insisted it was engaged in legitimate security operations. A spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on the arrest warrants.

    Military leaders rarely travel abroad and then only to close allies like China, but Tun Khin said he was hopeful there would be action.

    “As the warrant will be sent to all countries, Interpol will probably implement it. We wholeheartedly believe this,” Tun Khin. “This arrest warrant isn’t only to get justice for us Rohingya. I want to say it’s to get justice for all our citizens.”

    RELATED STORIES

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    Warrant for Suu Kyi

    Among the 22 other top military officials named in the warrants, is the deputy commander-in-chief, Soe Win. Others include officers operating in Rakhine state at the time.

    It is not the only legal effort aimed at bringing to justice those responsible for crimes against the Rohingya.

    International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan requested an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing in November. However, it has yet to rule on whether to grant it.

    A Rohingya community leader welcomed the ruling in Argentina.

    “We’re glad. Our people were being killed illegally and the people who were committing genocide will never be free,” said Khin Maung, spokesperson for the Rohingya Youth Organization in Bangladesh.

    In its initial 2019 petition, the BROUK included civilian government leaders Suu Kyi and Htin Kyaw. But after they and their government were ousted in 2021 the BROUK requested that the court consider if warrants for their arrests “serves the best interests of justice at this time.”

    Tun Khin said the military leaders were the main target of his group’s petition.

    “Within the arrest warrant in BROUK’s application, the established military personnel were the ones requested in the warrant,” he said.

    Suu Kyi, trying to ensure the survival of her fragile government in the face of a looming threat from the military, went to the International Court of Justice in the Hague in 2019 to rejected accusations of genocide committed against the Rohingya as “incomplete and misleading”.

    For years Suu Kyi had been feted in the West as a heroine of democracy but her statement at the U.N.‘s highest court, in which she described the military action in Rakhine state in 2017 as a “clearance operation”, did serious damage to her reputation.

    It also failed to protect her elected government from a military coup just over a year later.

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Scores of Myanmar scam center victims handed over to Thai army | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar militia hosting scam centers says it will deport 8,000 foreigners

    Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese

    A pro-junta Myanmar militia hosting extensive online fraud operations in its zone on the Thai border has said it will deport 8,000 scam center workers, most of them Chinese, from its area as it seeks to close down illegal activities.

    The vow to clean up human trafficking and online fraud comes after unprecedented pressure on the ethnic Karen force following growing international outrage about the criminal activity in its area including forced labor.

    “We expect that there will be up to 8,000 people, maybe more,” said Naing Maung Zaw, a spokesman for a militia known as the Karen Border Guard Force, or BGF, which oversees scam operations in eastern Myanmar’s Myawaddy district.

    “We’ll send back as many as we have – we’ve already made a list – via Thailand or back into Myanmar. According to the figures, many of them came in with Thai visas, so we have to send them back to Thailand,” he told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.

    Most of them were from China, he said.

    The BGF sent 61 foreigners to Thailand on Feb. 6, a day after Thailand cut cross-border power and internet services and blocked fuel exports to Myanmar scam zones. The BGF’s Myanmar junta sponsors also stopped fuel shipments to the area, residents said this week.

    Another 261 foreigners from 20 countries, including China, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Nepal, Kenya and Philippines, were handed over to Thai authorities on Wednesday.

    Online fraud gangs proliferated in more lawless corners of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted casinos.

    The scamming, known as “pig butchering” in China, usually involves making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a relationship with them and then defrauding them. Researchers say billions of dollars have been stolen this way from victims around the world.

    Huge fraud operation complexes are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work, sometimes under threat of violence, rescued workers and rights groups say.

    China, home to many of the victims of the scams, has in recent weeks worked to spur authorities in its southern neighbors to take action against the criminal enterprises.

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    Thais seek arrests

    In addition to the utility cuts and fuel blockade, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, which is responsible for tackling organized crime, has sought arrest warrants for the leader of the BGF, Col. Saw Chit Thu, and two colleagues on suspicion of human trafficking, Thai media reported this week.

    As the pressure has built up, BGF and its parent organization, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, have promised to eliminate fraud and forced labor in their area, and they have in recent days begun sending former workers across the border to Thailand

    A commander of the DKBA said the days of scamming and forced labor were over and his force would focus on legitimate business.

    “We plan to continue and support as much as we can businesses like housing, hotels and tourism to develop our own region,” DKBA Chief of Staff Gen. Saw San Aung told RFA.

    The DKBA emerged from a split in the 1990s in Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority guerrilla force, the largely Christian-led Karen National Union, when Buddhist fighters broke away, and sided with the military.

    The military let the breakaway fighters, who called themselves the DKBA, rule in areas under government control in Kayin state. The DKBA later set up the BGF under the auspices of the army, and they have reaped profits from cross-border trade, online gambling and scam operations.

    The DKBA is an important ally for the Myanmar military as it faces an onslaught from insurgent groups battling to end military rule. The DKBA intervened in April to help junta forces stop the KNU from capturing Myawaddy, a vital economic lifeline for the embattled regime.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Telecom outages impact livelihoods in Myanmar’s Rakhine

    Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese.

    Telecommunications outages in western Myanmar’s embattled Rakhine state have persisted for nearly 100 days, impinging on its more than 3 million residents’ right to information and livelihoods, sources in the region said Wednesday.

    The blackouts have affected all 14 townships occupied by the rebel Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine, sources said, as well as AA-occupied Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state, and the Rakhine townships of Kyaukphyu, Munaung and parts of Sittwe, which have been under the control of the military junta since its February 2021 coup d’etat.

    The AA cut off both telephone and internet access in its territories beginning Nov. 16, 2024, and a source close to the rebel group told RFA Burmese that the outages are “to prevent airstrikes, because there are junta informants” there. He offered no evidence to support his claim.

    The junta implemented blackouts in its Rakhine territories shortly after the AA attacked military positions in the state in November 2023, ending a year-long ceasefire.

    Attempts by RFA to reach Khaing Thukha, the AA spokesperson, for comment went unanswered Wednesday, as did calls to Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesperson and state attorney general in Rakhine state.

    A Buddhist monk records a video with his mobile phone as he listens to Rohingya Muslim poets during the
    A Buddhist monk records a video with his mobile phone as he listens to Rohingya Muslim poets during the “Poetry for Humanity” event in Yangon, Myanmar.
    (Sai Aung Main/AFP)

    Residents said that, in addition to affecting their livelihoods, the blackouts have made communicating with family members a challenge.

    “Separated across different areas, we can’t communicate with our families or close relatives,” said one Rakhine resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

    He noted that transportation is difficult and travel expenses are high, so meeting in person is also off the table.

    “Our family members [in other parts of Rakhine state] don’t know what is happening to us here,” he said. “We are also deeply worried when we hear that the junta has carried out aerial strikes in areas where our family members live.”

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    Other residents said that fighters with the AA and other allied rebel groups have access to the internet via the satellite service Starlink.

    Several said that they need to travel “miles” in order to access a working telephone.

    Communicating from abroad

    Many people from Rakhine state, an underdeveloped area of Myanmar, choose to work abroad to earn a living and send money home to help their families.

    But a resident of Rakhine who is working in Thailand told RFA that the lack of phone and internet connections has made it nearly impossible for her to send money home.

    “I can’t even communicate with my children, who are still in the village, and as a mother, I constantly worry about them,” she said. “I also have parents and siblings, and I want to know if they are safe and how they manage to make a living. Not being able to reach them fills me with anxiety.”

    The woman, who also declined to be named, said it had been “more than two months” since she last had contact with her family members in Rakhine.

    Journalists in Rakhine told RFA that while the AA has allowed them to access the internet using Starlink, they can only do so for five hours a day, limiting their ability to report news from the region.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar military torches nearly 200 homes in Sagaing region

    Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese.

    Myanmar junta forces torched nearly 200 homes in the northwestern region of Sagaing, the latest incident in a campaign to punish communities that support insurgents that has seen more than 100,000 homes burned since a 2021 coup, residents and a monitoring group said on Wednesday.

    Sagaing, which stretches from central low lands up to mountains on the border with India, has been embroiled in fighting that surged across Myanmar after the military ousted an elected government four years ago.

    In the latest military raids, soldiers rampaged across Sagaing’s Wetlet and Kanbalu townships on Sunday and Monday, destroying more than 180 homes and sending 10,000 people fleeing for safety, said a member of a pro-democracy militia, known as a People’s Defense Force, or PDF.

    “They started by burning Koe Myo village. After that they continued burning Tho Boe village,” said the member of the Koe Myo PDF who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

    He said he knew of one person killed and one wounded.

    Most of the buildings in the two villages were burned down, he said.

    RFA tried to telephone the junta spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment but he did not respond by the time of publication. The military has in the past denied accusations that it burns villagers’ homes.

    Smoke rises from a burning village in Myanmar's Wetlet township on Feb. 9, 2025.
    Smoke rises from a burning village in Myanmar’s Wetlet township on Feb. 9, 2025.
    (Wetlet Information Network)

    Fighters battling to end military rule from both the PDFs that have proliferated and allied ethnic minority insurgents, enjoy much public support in a country where military rule is generally detested, especially since the ouster of a government led by Myanmar’s most popular politician, Aung San Suu Kyi.

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    Myanmar soldiers have for decades employed anti-insurgent tactics in ethnic minority areas that include punishing communities seen as supporting opposition forces, often by killing inhabitants and razing villages, human rights groups say.

    The monitoring and research group Data for Myanmar said more than 103,000 homes had been burned across Myanmar by the military and pro-junta militias since the 2021 coup,

    “The Myanmar military and its affiliates have carried out arson attacks in areas with a strong resistance presence. These attacks targeted villages that support resistance forces,” Data for Myanmar said in a report on Wednesday.

    “In addition to direct arson attacks during military operations, civilian homes have also been burned down through artillery, airstrikes, and naval shelling,” the research group said.

    More than 69% of all the homes burned in Myanmar since the coup have been in Sagaing, the group said.

    Other areas to have suffered were Magway, Tanintharyi and Mandalay regions, and Rakhine and Chin states, the group said.

    Data for Myanmar called for pressure from the international community to put a stop to the burning, and for all sides to avoid harming civilians.

    “All armed groups must promptly cease targeting civilians and civilian homes with attacks and arson,” the group said.

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar refugees in limbo after US suspends resettlement program

    Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese.

    UMPIEM MAI REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand — Saw Ba had been living in a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border for 16 years when he got the news last month that he’d been waiting years for: He and his family would be boarding a plane to resettle in America.

    It had been a long wait. Saw Ba, in his 40s and whose name has been changed in this story for security reasons, had applied for resettlement soon after getting to the camp in 2008.

    With much anticipation, staffers from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, brought his family and 22 other people from Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp to a hotel in the Thai border town of Mae Sot in mid-January.

    There they were to wait to catch a flight to Bangkok and on to the United States.

    Freedom and a new life awaited.

    But three days later, the IOM staffers delivered bad news: All 26 people would have to return to the refugee camp because the incoming Trump administration was about to order a halt to the processing and travel of all refugees into the United States.

    A poster is displayed inside a food distribution building at the Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thai-Myanmar border at Phop Phra district, Tak province, Feb. 7, 2025.
    A poster is displayed inside a food distribution building at the Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thai-Myanmar border at Phop Phra district, Tak province, Feb. 7, 2025.
    (Shakeel/AP)

    A few days later, after his Jan. 20 inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending refugee resettlement as part of a broader effort to “immediately end the migrant invasion of America.”

    The executive order said the United States “lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees.”

    Back in his family’s barren, ramshackle hut in the camp, Saw Ba was crestfallen.

    “We have lost our hope now,” he said.

    Left in Limbo

    Saw Ba’s family is among hundreds or perhaps thousands of refugees globally who were held back on the cusp of entering the United States.

    According to the Associated Press, a little more than 10,000 refugees worldwide had already been vetted and had scheduled travel to the United States ahead of the Jan. 20 deadline. It was not clear how many actually entered the United States before that date.

    At Umpiem Mai camp, around 400 refugees had been waiting for resettlement in the United States.

    Now they will have to wait longer.

    The Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, at Phop Phra district, Tak province, a Thai-Myanmar border province, Feb. 7, 2025.
    The Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, at Phop Phra district, Tak province, a Thai-Myanmar border province, Feb. 7, 2025.
    (Shakeel/AP)

    Saw Ba and his family had been so sure they would be resettled that they had given all of their belongings — including their clothes — to neighbors and friends, while their children had dropped out of school and returned their books.

    “When we arrived back here [at Umpiem], we had many difficulties,” he told RFA Burmese, particularly with their children’s education.

    “Our children have been out of school for a month, and now they’re back, and their final exams are coming up,” he said. “Our children won’t have books anymore when they return to school. I don’t know whether they’ll pass or fail this year’s exams.”

    Missionary work

    Saw Ba fled to the refugee camp because he was targeted for his Christian missionary work.

    Originally from Pathein township, in western Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region, he was approached by an official with the country’s military junta in 2009 and told to stop his activities.

    When he informed the official that he was not involved in politics and refused to comply, police were sent to arrest him.

    He fled to Thailand, where he ended up in the Umpiem Mai camp. There he met his wife and had a son and daughter, now in seventh and second grade, respectively.

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    Another woman in the camp, Thin Min Soe, said her husband and their two children had undergone a battery of medical tests and had received an acceptance letter for resettlement, allowing them to join a waitlist to travel.

    She had fled her home in the Bago region in central Myanmar for taking part in the country’s 2007 Saffron Revolution, when the military violently suppressed widespread anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks.

    Thin Min Soe and other refugees at the camp told RFA they are afraid of returning to Myanmar due to the threat of persecution. The country has been pitched into civil war after the military toppled an elected government in 2021. Many said they no longer have homes or villages to return to, even if they did want to go back.

    With the U.S. refugee program suspended, “we are now seriously concerned about our livelihood because we have to support our two children’s education and livelihoods,” she said.

    When RFA contacted the camp manager and the refugee affairs office, they responded by saying they were not allowed to comment on the matter.

    US has resettled 3 million refugees

    Since 1980, more than 3 million refugees — people fearing persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a social group — have been resettled in the United States.

    During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the United States resettled 100,034 refugees, the highest number in 30 years. The most came from the Republic of the Congo, followed by Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria. Myanmar was fifth, accounting for 7.3%, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

    Over the past 30 years, the United States accepted the highest number of refugees from Myanmar — about 76,000 — followed by Canada and Australia, according to the U.S. Embassy in Thailand.

    Hundreds of Myanmar refugees from Thailand were brought to the U.S. in November and December, before the end of former President Joe Biden’s term.

    The entrance to the Ohn Pyan refugee camp near Mae Sot, Thailand, undated photo.
    The entrance to the Ohn Pyan refugee camp near Mae Sot, Thailand, undated photo.
    (RFA)

    RFA requests for comment on the situation sent to the IOM, the U.S. Embassy in Thailand and The Border Consortium — the main provider of food, shelter and other forms of support to the approximately 120,000 refugees from Myanmar living in nine camps in western Thailand — were not immediately returned.

    But an aid worker from the region told RFA that the refugees who were sent back to Umpiem Mai were sure to face challenges reintegrating in the camp.

    “When they return, they will have difficulty getting food and finding accommodations,” said the aid worker, who also declined to be named. “They have already given their belongings to relatives, and some have been sold.”

    Thai medical services

    Thai officials, meanwhile, are working to provide medical care at camps for Myanmar refugees where health services have been affected by a recent suspension of U.S. foreign aid, also activated by Trump under an executive order.

    The suspension prompted a Feb. 3 meeting of officials from the nine camps for Myanmar refugees along the border and Thai authorities and hospital officials.

    They agreed that the camps will continue to use clinics and equipment provided by the U.S.-based humanitarian aid provider International Rescue Committee, or IRC, to treat camp residents, according to Saw Pwe Say, the secretary of the ethnic Karen Refugee Committee.

    “I felt relieved … they said the IRC has approved the camps to continue using their clinics and equipment for medical treatment,” he said.

    The Ohn Pyan refugee camp near Mae Sot, Thailand, undated photo.
    The Ohn Pyan refugee camp near Mae Sot, Thailand, undated photo.
    (RFA)

    Thai health workers will provide healthcare during the day from Monday to Friday, while refugee camp health professionals will be on duty at night and on weekends.

    The U.S. freeze on foreign aid has also impacted the work of other humanitarian groups at the Thai-Myanmar border, including the Mae Tao Clinic, which provides free medical care to those in need, as well as health education and social services, officials told RFA.

    Translated by Aung Naing and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Two brothers reunited after fighting against each other in Myanmar conflict | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Two brothers reunited after fighting against each other in Myanmar conflict | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Thai rule gives Myanmar junta greater power to block workers: activists

    MAE SOT, Thailand – Thailand’s latest labor documentation rule requiring Myanmar government approval has raised concern among migrant worker advocates, who warn the policy could expose millions of Myanmar workers to conscription risks from their country’s military regime.

    Thai lawmakers periodically change the procedure to enable migrant workers – both new arrivals applying for the first time and those already in the country – to get the documents they need to work legally.

    The new process requires Thai employers or agents to “prepare documents for submission to Myanmar officials” for their employees from Myanmar and would require their embassy in Bangkok to “examine and endorse” the documents, according to Thailand’s Department of Employment.

    But migrant worker advocates believe involving the Myanmar embassy is unnecessary and effectively gives the junta veto power over workers, which could give those who fled their war-torn country little choice but to go home to the risk of conscription and repression.

    The result could be that Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand give up efforts to get legally registered.

    “Most people who are opting to stay outside of the system are doing so because they are fearful of repercussions from the Burmese government, either to themselves and their families,” said Brahm Press, director of the Migrant Assistance Program, referring to Myanmar.

    “Especially people who have been escaping conscription, anyone who was part of the People’s Defense Forces or the Civil Disobedience Movement,” he added, referring to anti-junta militias and a protest campaign by civil workers who quit their jobs to protest against a military coup four years ago.

    Myanmar migrant workers outside their accommodations in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province on Jan. 26, 2025.
    Myanmar migrant workers outside their accommodations in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province on Jan. 26, 2025.
    (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)

    After the Myanmar military enacted conscription laws in early 2024, tens of thousands of people flooded into Thailand in a matter of months, both in search of better economic opportunities and to escape being arrested and forced to fight in a war against those trying to end military rule.

    More than 21,000 political prisoners have been detained by the junta since the 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

    Radio Free Asia tried to telephone Somchai Morakotsriwan, Thailand’s director general of the Job Employment Department, for more information on the new rules for Myanmar migrant workers but he did not respond by the time of publication.

    Workers in the lurch

    As many as 3,000 workers in Mae Sot, a western Thai district on the Myanmar border, are expected to choose not to complete the first registration step in order to protect their identity from the junta by a Feb. 13 deadline despite the drawbacks, according to the Yaung Chi Oo Workers’ Association, which helps Myanmar nationals working on the border.

    But being undocumented has big drawbacks for workers, said the association’s joint secretary, Moe Kyaw.

    “When they get injured, when they are sick, they have no access to the social security fund. And also their right to travel is limited without legal documents – they can’t travel to other provinces,” he added. “They are not allowed to open or create bank accounts, they can’t get a driver’s license.”

    Press of the Migrant Assistance Program also pointed to the risks.

    “Leaving populations undocumented, with little access to formal services like healthcare, can lead to increases in malaria, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases,” Press said.

    “With more of this invisible population circulating, I think that there will be some effects, because people won’t have access to health services, the health system, testing – they’ll be scared to expose themselves.”

    An outdoor market frequented by Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province on Jan. 26, 2025.
    An outdoor market frequented by Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province on Jan. 26, 2025.
    (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)

    Growing pressure

    The new Thai regulation is the latest action by Thailand to make life more complicated for Myanmar workers, which migrants and rights activists say bolsters the junta’s effort to get young people home to join the military.

    In July, Thailand closed seven offices issuing identity documents for Myanmar migrants, forcing them to use their embassy to complete the paperwork instead, and thereby giving the embassy the power to block people from Thai employment.

    Myanmar’s exiled parallel National Unity Government has called on Thailand to end the junta’s growing control of its overseas workers.

    In Myanmar, the military regime has also placed further restrictions on its workers trying to go overseas, while squeezing those already abroad for desperately needed foreign income to support a tanking Myanmar economy.

    In January, Myanmar’s Ministry of Labor required agencies sending workers overseas to ensure their Thai employers agree that migrant workers can be sent home to serve in the military, and later that month, the ministry changed its rules to prevent men of enlistment age from signing contracts with agencies sending workers abroad.

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    Myanmar workers in Laos and Thailand who register with the Myanmar embassy are also required to pay mandatory remittances through junta-owned banks as well as taxes, which workers say they are reluctant to pay.

    Thailand needs migrant workers for its growing economy and is wary of chaos in its western neighbor, with which it shares a 2,400-kilometer (1,500 miles) border.

    Thai political analyst and former government adviser Panitan Wattanayagorn said he suspected the Myanmar junta was pressing Thailand to support its polices.

    “Thai officials here are also under the pressure to work more with the government of Myanmar,” said Panitan.

    “I think that the pressure is official from the labor department of Myanmar to our labor department and also maybe indirect pressure from the agencies that are working for the Myanmar government, so they may apply pressure to the different channels.”

    Edited by Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar ‘healing’ farm for people dealing with mental health challenges | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar ‘healing’ farm for people dealing with mental health challenges | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar junta blocks fuel to eastern border scam center town

    Read RFA coverage of these topics in Burmese

    Myanmar’s junta has blocked the supply of fuel to a town bordering Thailand where scam centers are rampant days after Thailand cut cross-border power, fuel and internet services to the lawless enclave where fraud and forced labor have thrived.

    The Myawaddy district is under the control of a pro-junta militia known as the Border Guard Force, or BGF, that has opened up its zone to criminal networks, many run by Chinese networks, which operate extensive “pig-butchering” online fraud operations.

    Thailand, facing damage to its tourist industry because of public alarm throughout Asia about forced labor in the centers, cut off electricity and the internet and blocked the supply of fuel to Myawaddy on Feb. 5.

    The Myanmar junta has also stopped fuel reaching Myawaddy from central Myanmar ports to replace the supplies blocked by Thailand, Myawaddy residents told Radio Free Asia.

    Myanmar military authorities were not letting fuel trucks through a checkpoint at a bridge on the road between the town of Kawkareik and Myawaddy, they said.

    “There’s no fuel at all in the town,” said one Myawaddy resident who declined to be identified for security reasons.

    “More than 40 boxers are stuck at the junta checkpoint,” said the resident referring to fuel trucks. “We do not know what’ll happen tomorrow.‘’

    RFA tried to telephone the junta’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun, to ask about the fuel restriction but he did not answer.

    The scams, known as “pig butchering” in China, usually involve making contact with unsuspecting people online, building a personal relationship with them and then defrauding them. The centres are often staffed by people lured by false job advertisements and forced to work.

    The rescue of a Chinese actor from a Myawaddy fraud center last month raised international alarm about the centers, triggered the cancellations of Thai holiday plans by frightened Chinese tourists and encouraged the Thai government to act.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Thailand’s visiting prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra last Thursday for the crackdown.

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    Pumps run dry

    Ordinary residents of Myawaddy say the restrictions on power and fuel are hitting them as well as the scam centers.

    “Many businesses rely on fuel for pumping water, for everything. So while cutting fuel will affect the scam gangs it also impacts the public,” said the town resident.

    One Myawaddy gasoline pump said it only had enough fuel for a car or two but that was sold out even though the price had nearly doubled to 10,000 kyat (US$5) a liter.

    In the area’s main hub for scam operations at Shwe Kokko, 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of Myawaddy, the price of fuel rose to almost 20,000 kyat before it sold out.

    “In Shwe Kokko, there’s absolutely no fuel. You can’t use a car at all,” said the resident.

    The ethnic Karen BGF emerged after a split in Myanmar’s oldest minority insurgent force, the Christian-led Karen National Union in the 1990s. Buddhist breakaway fighters formed their own force and allied with the military, which granted them control of Myawaddy.

    Analysts say the junta has turned a blind eye to the scam centers, and profited from them, while the BGF has helped the military keep KNU forces out of the main crossing point for trade on the Thai-Myanmar border.

    Facing pressure from all sides, the BGF has promised to clean up its zone and stop fraud and forced labor.

    On Sunday, it ordered Chinese nationals working in online operations to leave the town of Payathonzu, on the Thai border to the south of Myawaddy, by the end of the month.

    The junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said last week the military would take action against money laundering.

    Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.