In Burma, the flooding and destruction caused by Tropical Storm Yagi since 13 September have dealt a double blow to the population, which in many regions has already been displaced or affected by fighting between the military junta and armed resistance. In addition, the country’s economy is on the verge of collapse.
While the regime officially estimated the death toll on 18 September at 226 dead and 77 missing, the underground resistance government, called the National Unity Government (NUG), puts the number of dead and missing at at least 1,000. The junta has been accused of mismanaging water tanks and misinforming the population.
Min Aung Hlaing, who overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, admitted to being shocked by the scale of the destruction. The coup-plotting general appears on the front page of the newspaper New Global Light of Myanmar, The junta’s official voice, since Thursday, September 19, has stood beside victims in the rural slums around Naypyidaw, the regime’s highly protected capital, promising “do everything possible to return to normal”.
Min Aung Hlaing also called on his administration to receive international aid, a change of stance for the junta which has repeatedly rejected any foreign support in the past. In May 2023, Naypyidaw even blocked international agencies from accessing the regions affected by Cyclone Mocha in Rakhine State.
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This “opening” is above all a sign of weakness: the Burmese army, overwhelmed by armed resistance offensives from the country’s peripheral areas, has introduced compulsory military service for up to 35 years, further disorganising the economy. Even in central areas of Burma, shortages are affecting an increasing number of basic products.
Observers fear the aim is to get international aid to affected areas under military control, particularly around Naypyidaw, but also in parts of Sagaing region, around Mandalay and in southern Shan state, a loyalist stronghold where flooding has caused extensive damage.
Yet for nearly two years, the resistance has been trying, in vain, to get international agencies to deal with the NUG and transport aid across bordering countries directly to territories under the control of armed ethnic groups in conflict with the junta. The equation is complicated: any UN agency that did so would lose its official authorization to operate inside Burma. And a bordering country like Thailand, for example, cannot risk offending the Burmese regime by receiving international aid in the name of the resistance.
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