We have replaced all names in this article with pseudonyms to protect our sources’ security
Not far behind the front lines on one of Myanmar’s several battlefronts, detachments of women in fatigues remain vigilant and ready to fulfil, on command, the essential duties assigned to them.
Each has a different function, but all share the same fundamental responsibility: providing the aid and support that makes it possible for their comrades to win on the battlefield.
Sandar, one of the first recruits to complete basic military training in late 2021, now administrative duties as part of the Mandalay People’s Defence Force (MDY-PDF), a group of anti-junta resistance fighters under the command of the publicly mandated National Unity Government.
As the armed resistance continues to gain ground against the military junta, more women are taking up roles within independent resistance units throughout Myanmar, contributing actively to the cause of overthrowing the military dictatorship.
While relatively few are going into battle, female soldiers are involved in other essential parts of the resistance’s operations including military training, medical support, and deploying remote controlled drones against the enemy.
Sandar, who used to work as a tour guide in Bagan in Mandalay Region’s Nyaung-U Township, said that she sometimes comes close to forgetting her gender while concentrating on her duties as a MDY-PDF member.
“Here, everyone is equal. There are no differences between men and women,” Sandar said.
“Our attention is always focused on completing the task at hand.”
The MDY-PDF is an armed group commanded by the defence ministry of the NUG—a shadow government formed and endorsed by ousted civilian leaders in response to the military coup of February 2021.
It has also collaborated with other anti-junta groups not under the NUG’s command. Most notably, the MDY-PDF have fought alongside the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, a predominantly Palaung ethnic armed group and member of the Brotherhood Alliance, which in October 2023 launched ‘Operation 1027’, a sweeping offensive campaign against the Myanmar military.
Since Operation 1027 resumed in June following a five-month ceasefire, the MDY-PDF’s fighters have won a series of victories in battle against the Myanmar military in their home territory of Mandalay Region, capturing the towns of Singu, Taungtha, and Thabeikkyin.
Sandar says she joined the armed resistance movement for federal democracy and believes that a civilian government that replaces the reigning military junta will establish a federal democracy granting greater autonomy to Myanmar’s ethnic minorities.
She also believes that building such a federal democracy is a necessary precondition for elevating the minorities’ socioeconomic status within Myanmar.
Sandar is driven, she said, by her profound faith in her organisation’s goals, and believes it is on the right path towards achieving them.
While acknowledging that the challenges of life in an austere environment have made her stronger, Sandar says she still yearns for the old comforts of her mother’s cooking, especially when she feels unwell.
“I get cravings for my mother’s soup whenever I’m sick,” she said. “We face a lot of difficulties here and have only limited amenities.”
Although women comprise only 10 percent of the MDY-PDF’s membership, Sandar says their tireless efforts and contributions are key to its successes in war.
Drone operations
Maria, one of the youngest female members, was in her late teens when she finished basic combat training after joining the MDY-PDF in October 2022.
Initially assigned as a combat medic, she was later approved for training in one of the MDY-PDF’s drone units.
The drone unit plays a crucial role in protecting and supporting MDY-PDF combat units as they advance into enemy-held territory. Drones allow for targeted strikes on the junta forces and enable the MDY-PDF to provide additional cover for their frontline fighters.
Members of the drone units often serve close to the front lines under fire from the regime forces’ artillery and aircraft. However, Maria seems undaunted by the stress of performing the complex task under such dangerous conditions, saying she is used to it after participating in multiple combat missions.
“Operating a drone on the frontline is a challenging task, but we’ve learned to stay calm under pressure, especially during enemy attacks,” said Maria, who is now in her early 20s.
When not piloting drones, Maria says she assists with administrative duties and seeks out training to ensure her skills are up to date for any task for which she may be needed.
Medical service
Kha Yay, 34, says she joined her medical unit to save the lives of wounded resistance fighters after seeing too many comrades succumb to their battle injuries for lack of personnel qualified to treat them.
“There were no medical teams in local resistance groups where I came from. It took nearly four hours to reach a doctor. Sometimes, we were unable to save the lives of our comrades,” Kha Yay said.
The local resistance group in which she served before joining the MDY-PDF had been based in Sagaing Region.
Kha Yay says she put all her effort into completing the two-month, intensive medical training offered by the MDY-PDF.
The MDY-PDF has become like a second family to her, she added, and because of the group’s disciplined adherence to a code of ethics and respect for its chain of command, she has high hopes for its future.
“We all feel bound by a deep camaraderie and are always ready to help each other. We also share everything we have,” she said.
In addition to treating and serving MDY-PDF fighters, she says she and her mobile team often provide medical aid to civilians to earn their trust and forge bonds with the local community.
Kha Yay added that she will be fully committed to the revolutionary mission of the MDY-PDF until it succeeds, after which she plans to return home and take care of her mother.
“Here, we have the opportunity to prove ourselves through our actions and achievements,” said Kha Yay. “I’m excited to return home victorious.”
For Rohingya women, nowhere is safe
Having fled for their lives, mostly from what the United Nations (UN) called a ‘textbook’ example of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar’s Rakhine State eight years ago, Rohingya women have become the most vulnerable victims of intensifying violence in Bangladeshi refugee camps
Published on November 25, 2024
By Su Chay & Mohammed Zonaid
“My village was under a genocidal attack. We had no escape but to run to Bangladesh.”
Anika*, 29, recalled how she had fled her home—located in Buthidaung Township’s Taung Bazar village in northern Rakhine State—along with her husband and daughter in 2017, escaping the lethal, targeted violence of a “clearing operation” that the Myanmar military carried out on August 25.
She remembered how the army troops had entered the village, arresting at least 50 people on suspicion of links to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya armed group that had claimed responsibility for attacks on police outposts in the township.
The military’s response, inflicted indiscriminately on entire Rohingya communities, was brutal.
They committed arson attacks, raped, and killed, forcing more than 700,000—possibly closer to a million—Rohingya people to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. These actions ultimately resulted in Myanmar officials facing as yet untried genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.
For her part, Anika joined hundreds of thousands of others fleeing the targeted violence. Trekking for eight days through inhospitable mountains with little food and insufficient water, she had no choice but to drink the dirty groundwater she found by the roadside.
More than one million Rohingya refugees are now living in camps in Bangladesh. They have no freedom of movement and no access to an adequate education or livelihood, relying on meagre donations from international aid agencies.
They stay mostly in improvised shelters made of plastic and whatever materials can be found in the sprawling camps, sharing public toilets and facilities for bathing with other residents.
In recent years, security issues in the camps have worsened, with a rising trend of reported extortion and abductions by armed, self-styled militias, called “gangsters” by some camp residents, especially the ARSA, the Rohingya Salvation Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA).
Besides the reported abductions of young adult males by the militias for ransom or forced military service back in Myanmar, Rohingya women and girls have said they were facing an even greater danger of daily harassment, sexual assault, and abduction for sex trafficking.
According to a United Nations (UN) report from this year, more than 900,000 Rohingya refugees are currently staying in camps in the district of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
A deteriorating security situation in the camps, aggravated by the insufficiency of humanitarian aid, has aggravated the myriad risks to the residents’ safety—especially women’s—including the danger of trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation, the report said.
Running without escaping
Living in refugee camps for seven years after fleeing Myanmar, Anika was able to find work for a time before she had to flee again.
Along with her husband and two children, Anika was forced to flee after the ARSA threatened to kill her for working as a teacher.
She said after working for a while she started receiving threats from different militia groups in the camps, who said Muslim women should not be allowed to take jobs with nongovernmental organisations or even leave their homes each day for work.
Anika showed a letter dated October 8 to Myanmar Now, which she had written to a UN agency in Cox’s Bazar, appealing for help and protection from the criminal groups in the camp.
The letter recounts how one day in early September, Anika was at home doing chores without her husband, when a group of men she believed to be members of the RSO came into the camp without permission.
“They forced their way into my shelter and tried to wrong me,” she said, meaning they attempted sexual assault.
“I’ve been living a life of horror, day and night. I’ve been threatened and tortured by the ARSA criminals,” Anika wrote in her letter.
Most Rohingya women who have taken teaching jobs face verbal harassment every day, including insulting comments on their clothing and makeup, threats, and other such abuse. They are harassed for working outside their homes, Anika said, adding that the percentage of Rohingya teachers in the camps who are women has dropped from 30 to 10.
“I, too, had to quit my teaching job,” she told Myanmar Now in July.
“The situation gets worse by the day. People are killed, kidnapped, and robbed nearly every day,” she said.
Anika added that the security staff from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has come to interview her, but she has yet to receive any substantive help to defray her cost of living, which is twice what it was in the camp.
“Now I’m just waiting for their call, living outside the camp,” she said, adding, “We don’t have support from local police and the Bangladeshi government… Women don’t receive enough legal support.”
“There are many others around the camps who are facing similar problems,” she continued. “The world doesn’t know about this because almost everyone stays silent. If anyone raises this, they only face more danger and risk losing their dignity.”
This year in June and August, a new wave of tens of thousands of Rohingya fled their homes to escape violence in northern Rakhine State, where the Rakhine ethnic armed organisation Arakan Army (AA) has been fighting the Myanmar military for control of the state for more than a year. The AA, accused of raping Rohingya women and targeting Rohingya civilians, has now taken control of more than half the townships in the state from the Myanmar military, and is continuing to fight for full control.
Online harassment turns to real-world danger
Shida* fled her home in 2017, when she was in sixth grade, travelling with her family to the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar district.
She said she has had the opportunity to study in the camp, where she worked initially as a teacher and later as a translator from Rohingya to Bengali to help patients communicate with doctors.
Travelling to work always comes with the risk of verbal harassment on the road, she said, adding to the online harassment she has come to expect every day.
“A lot of strangers have texted me on WhatsApp,” she said, “And also called me… I don’t know where they got my phone number from.”
For Shida, the only way to handle online harassment is to adhere strictly to her own rule: “No response, block them.” Her blocklist has now grown to some 200 phone numbers, she said, many with a Malaysian country code.
One day, after months of these unwanted messages, Shida recalled that she started receiving photos of herself from an unknown number, accompanied by unambiguous threats. She went to her brother-in-law, who called the number to confront the sender.
Just a few days later, on July 11 of this year, a group of armed men with guns came to her camp shelter at around 7pm, apparently intending to abduct her.
“Luckily, I was visiting my brother-in-law at the time, so they didn’t catch me at home,” she said.
However, the armed men were irate at finding Shida gone, rampaging through her family’s shelter and even forcing their guns into her mother’s mouth, holding the rest of the family at gunpoint as they searched for her.
They would not relent, even searching several neighbouring shelters before finally accepting her family’s explanation that she was visiting relatives outside the camps.
“I think Allah wanted to save me from those evil hands,” Shida said.
“I’m still concerned for my safety. I can’t go back home or back to work because they’re still on the hunt for me,” she told Myanmar Now.
Risking life for dignity
Cho Ma Win*, fled to Bangladesh when she was in ninth grade, but ultimately had to seek refuge in Malaysia because of the threats she faced in her Bangladeshi camp.
When Cho Ma arrived in the camp in 2017, she was hoping to continue her education, but soon found that educational opportunities were scarce and ultimately settled for a teaching job at a school for refugees funded by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
As she walked to the school each day, a man she had never met before disturbed and harassed her, saying he wanted to marry her. He not only harassed her incessantly, but even started telling her students the same thing, she said.
“His name was Mohammed Sadek,” she remembered.
“As I continued to ignore him, his behaviour got more serious. One day I got a call and it turned out to be from him.”
Cho Ma’s family, alarmed by Sadek’s erratic behaviour and constant harassment, began making arrangements for her to marry another man who worked for a nongovernmental organisation, she said.
According to Cho Ma, her harasser later turned out to be a member of the ARSA, which had been carrying out abductions in the camps, holding young men for ransom then sending them back to Myanmar to fight on the frontlines in Rakhine State if their families were unable to pay.
As her parents were trying to arrange her marriage, the man threatened them, saying he would kill her husband-to-be and claiming he had been in a previous sexual relationship with her.
“The reality was that he never even got to talk to me,” Cho Ma said, adding that the ordeal dragged on for months.
“I had to resign from my job because he tried to kidnap me,” she added.
With the situation spiralling out of control, Cho Ma’s family continued trying to send her to Malaysia to marry another man she had never met before.
However, she encountered no end of obstacles in trying to reach the other country: She had difficulty obtaining a passport, had to travel to India while evading police because of her undocumented status, fell victim to mugging and sexual assault on the way, and nearly drowned on a boat in the Bay of Bengal.
After months of fresh hindrances and dangers, she finally arrived in Malaysia in 2019. The marriage her family had arranged went ahead, she said, and she now had a son with her new husband.
Cho Ma’s experiences were not unique, she said. Many young women and girls in the refugee camps suffer every day through harassment and sexual assault, with the Bangladeshi government and UN agencies giving little or no attention to their plight.
Reports have even emerged of rape perpetrated by local, Bangladeshi police in the camps.
“My message to the world is that there are a lot of young girls who are going through these kinds of difficulties. You should support these girls,” Cho Ma said.
“Those gangsters should not be allowed to touch or harass girls and women,” she added.
With the dangers of harassment and sexual violence mounting in the camps and no protections of personal safety or legal support, Anika said, Rohingya girls and women have no escape but the usually perilous journey by boat to Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia.
Each year, hundreds of Rohingya die on the sea, usually while travelling to Malaysia and Indonesia in hopes of finally finding protection and safety.
“A lot of young girls are taking risks and opting for dangerous boat journeys because of the same problems I had,” Cho Ma said. “There must be legal action.”
Harassed and abducted for activism
Another victim of the violent armed groups in the camps was Cho Cho*, 25, a Rohingya activist working in the sphere of education and development. She said a Rohingya armed group threatened then kidnapped her for her work.
“I, along with a female colleague, was kidnapped for five hours back in 2022,” she said.
Ever since, she has lived outside of the camp but has continued to work for women’s education and empowerment.
“They have threatened me many times since, but I am not giving up because I am working on this for my community,” she said.
Like the other women who spoke with Myanmar Now, Cho Cho expressed frustration over the lack of support from Bangladeshi authorities and UN agencies on the threats to Rohingya women in the camps.
Rohingya people have been living in the camps for eight years, with few signs of improvement but the incidence of killings, extortion, abduction, harassment, and rape now on the rise, said Cho Cho.
“As we face a myriad of problems, why is the world still keeping silent? It’s very frustrating for us,” she said.
According to Anika, “When we were in Myanmar, we couldn’t live a peaceful life because we were Rohingya.” Now, she said, “We sought refuge here for our safety, but even here we are not safe.”
“I just want to live a peaceful life with my children and husband, like others around the world,” Anika said.
Myanmar Now was unable to reach the accused Rohingya militias for comment on the allegations of harassment, extortion, abductions, sexual assault, and other violence.
*Names in this article have been changed to protect our sources’ security
Myanmar’s Buddhist nuns nearing brink of starvation amid civil war
Neglected and marginalised, Buddhist nuns from across Myanmar share their stories of sheltering and educating the youth while coping with displacement and poverty
By Su Chay
*Names have been changed for security reasons
Around the clock for days on end, the roar of junta fighter jets over Loikaw kept Daw Theingi*, a Buddhist nun in her 40s, from sleeping.
Beside her, some 70 fellow nuns and novices were also lying awake under the trembling nunnery roof.
Aerial bombardment on the administrative capital of Myanmar’s Karenni State intensified in November last year alongside fierce fighting between the regime and ethnic armed organisations in the area. As bombs rained down on the city and the nunnery’s food and cooking oil supplies dwindled, Daw Theingi deliberated with other senior nuns whether to leave their home.
“I almost fell ill from the lack of sleep and food,” she said. “Luckily, I wasn’t hurt physically, but my health will certainly deteriorate due to the war.”
Myanmar Now recently spoke with six Buddhist nuns from around the country about the impact of the war on their everyday lives.
All six described being on the brink of starvation. Since the crippling economic impact of the 2021 military coup, donations from the Myanmar public—on which the pink-robed nuns largely depend for their survival—have diminished.
Fleeing Karenni State with orphaned nuns
Before 2021, Daw Theingi’s nunnery was home to more than 200 Buddhist nuns from across Karenni and southern Shan States, with many of the young nuns from families unable to afford their education and others with no surviving parents or guardians.
“We adopted them from as young as six days old to the age of eight. They had nowhere to go,” she told Myanmar Now.
The senior nuns had been providing young people with shelter and formal education at the Loikaw nunnery for over two decades before the chaos in the town made continued life there untenable.
In Myanmar, nunneries and monasteries have long been a crucial source of schooling for children from destitute families and areas with no educational infrastructure, especially in parts of the country impacted by the country’s 70-year-long civil war.
Following the ousting of the civilian-led National League for Democracy government in 2021, Myanmar’s educational, business, and health sectors have been devastated, with all-out war affecting both ethnic homelands as well as the country’s central heartland.
As November’s fighting between junta troops and resistance forces—led by the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF)—spread, scores of youth from the nunnery fled Loikaw. Those who could returned to their parents, while Daw Theingi remained with the rest.
In the same month, a young Buddhist novice was killed when a monastery in the town was hit by artillery shelling. This incident left Daw Theingi and the others with little choice but to leave the town, bringing dozens of children with them.
However, with roads out of Loikaw blocked due to armed clashes, transport options for the group of 70 were scarce.
“I rang [car companies] all day for two days, I was getting upset,” said Daw Theingi. “Luckily, my call was finally answered by a driver agreeing to take all 70 of us.”
The group was ready to leave by 3am the next morning, but had to wait for three hours for their transport to arrive, by which time the day’s fighting had already begun.
“We barely escaped. It was really terrifying. We prayed all the way until we reached a town in neighbouring Shan State,” Daw Theingi recalled, adding “That was the day that Loikaw market burned.”
Life of the displaced in the Ayeyarwady delta
Daw Theingi and the young nuns in her care made it safely to the Ayeyarwady Region, where she has family ties, and were offered a place to stay at a monastery in the regional capital, Pathein.
Even after they found temporary shelter, food scarcity was a constant challenge, especially in a new town where donations are even more difficult to come by, Daw Theingi said, explaining that the group relies on packages of peas, beans, and chilis from friends and relatives.
Struggling to afford basic necessities, the Buddhist nun described choosing from cheap vegetables past their freshness at the market, “I can’t afford to give them bread anymore as it costs 700 kyat [US $0.33] per pack,” she said.
“I have to remind them constantly to be sparing even in using soap and monthly pads,” she added, saying 15 among the group of 25 in her care were in need of sanitary products.
Daw Theingi recounted how one young nun was suffering from an ovarian cyst and in need of surgery.
With no way to pay for medical treatment, Daw Theingyi said her last hope was a hospital in Yangon that treats monks and nuns free of charge. However, as young people’s cases are not prioritised there, the young nun has not yet received approval for an operation and her health hangs in the balance.
Desperation for food and education in Sagaing
In northern Myanmar’s Sagaing Region, Daw Nandi, 54, spoke to Myanmar Now about her struggle to provide 18 young nuns with education and sustenance.
After changes in the education system introduced this year, she said monastic schools are no longer allowed to teach high school students beyond eighth grade.
As young monastic pupils are not permitted to attend government schools alongside lay students, the new rule leaves private education as the only means for the girls to continue their studies.
Seven of the 20 students go to private school for 70,000 kyat per person (US $33) each month, a cost that Daw Nandi has to shoulder.
As a result, she said, she has had to borrow more than 200,000 kyat (US $95) to pay school fees.
Daw Nandi has headed the nunnery for 24 years. She described how life has become particularly challenging since the 2021 coup due to a lack of donations and soaring prices even as the number of young nuns in her care has grown.
“The hardship this year is worse than in previous years,” she told Myanmar Now.
In the past, the parents of the young nuns would send rations and donations to the nunnery, but this year there have been none, she said, attributing this to the ongoing civil war.
Before war broke out in the region, nuns used to be able to collect donations from locals in surrounding rural communities, which helped with year-round rations, she said.
With fighting impacting broad swaths of Sagaing Region, the nuns’ contact with potential donors is severely limited. Like many others, Daw Nandi is facing shortages of rice and other dry rations for the first time.
“I used to be able to provide robes in abundance as well as some pocket money, but now even food is at a bare minimum [and is] mostly dried fish or fish paste,” Daw Nandi said.
“Families usually have no more than three children they need to support, but I have 18 students whom I need to care for,” she added.
Ma Waddy, a 16-year-old Buddhist nun preparing for the 11th grade, said that Daw Nandi has been supporting her since her mother passed away when she was in third grade. Her father, who lives from hand to mouth, is unable to contribute to her education.
Although she is a nun, Ma Waddy said she hopes to become a doctor after finishing grade 13.
“I want to graduate and become a doctor. But I have financial challenges,” she said, adding, “I also feel bad for our senior nuns, who have to pay a monthly fee for us.”
On her alms rounds, Ma Waddy has observed a significant decline in rice donations.
“In the past, at least eight out of ten households would offer rice, but now five out of ten shy away from contributing,” she said.
Yangon nunnery overflowing with war refugees
The recent escalation of violence between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in western Myanmar has triggered a mass exodus of civilians from Rakhine and Chin States.
Tens of thousands have sought refuge in Yangon and Ayeyarwady regions, including numerous parentless children who have sought shelter in nunneries.
Daw Haymar, a 53-year-old abbess, has given sanctuary and education to approximately 100 lay children—a mix of Christians and Buddhists—as well as sheltering 150 nuns.
She has housed upwards of 270 people, including teachers, at a time in her Yangon nunnery.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Daw Haymar said that some 400 people were staying at the nunnery. Following the coup, however, she has been forced to reduce the number of students she takes in due to financial struggles.
People are facing many difficulties in this period, Daw Haymar noted, referring to the economic effects of the coup.
Consumers have seen the price of necessities skyrocket, she added, with the price of a bag of rice soaring tenfold from around 35,000 kyat (US $16) before the coup.
“Only when people had a stable financial life could we feed those kids,” Daw Haymar said, describing how the lack of resources had diminished the nunnery’s capacity to help people.
According to Daw Haymar, the majority of students at the nunnery are from northern Rakhine State, where many have been left homeless by junta forces’ arson attacks on their villages. Other students came after fleeing conflict in Chin and Shan States.
“They were sent to the nunnery all alone, with the help of social workers, while their parents remained in the war zone amid burning, bombing, and artillery shelling,” she said.
The provision of education in certain regions is very poor, Daw Haymar said, referring especially to Rakhine State and noting that even fewer teachers have been willing to travel to the state’s remote regions during the war.
Recalling one family she took in, Daw Haymar said they had walked all the way from Rakhine State to Yangon on foot—a gruelling journey that took 18 days.
“They could have died on the way. I have so much pity for the children,” she said.
As resources have diminished, the abbess said she has had to turn some children away.
“Not being able to accept needy children breaks my heart—I wonder where they will go afterwards,” she said. “I worry that they may be sold to traffickers or forced to beg on the street.”
“As much as it saddens me to refuse them, it would also be a living hell if we [took them in and] couldn’t feed them,” Daw Haymar said.
Emphasising the adversity faced by Buddhist nuns in Myanmar, Daw Haymar noted that for every hundred people who donate to a monastery, not even one would donate to a nunnery. As a result, she said, the struggles monks have undergone are incomparable to those experienced by nuns.
Daw Haymar also mentioned the difficulty of being unable to afford sanitary products for the nuns in her community, saying that these essentials have tripled or quadrupled in price since before the coup.
“The donations aren’t increasing, but the hardships are,” she added. “Due to spiking prices, we are barely managing not to starve.”
