“I didn’t think I’d make a good soldier. So I thought it would be better to join the resistance as a doctor.”

On his Facebook page, Htet*, a doctor in the midst of Myanmar’s civil war, crafts poignant poems to process the waves of trauma he too feels with his own hands.

“Unextractable metal pieces pierced into flesh/Disabled limbs/Stone cold bodies/And many other things,” he writes.

Since the 2021 military takeover, Myanmar has become a hostile place for healthcare workers. An estimated 60,000 left their jobs in government hospitals in protest against the coup, making medics a key junta target. Healthcare workers have faced arrest and attacks by officials for joining the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), for treating wounded anti-coup protestors, and for continuing to provide care to the public in unofficial clinics.

Htet, a 34-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist, speaks to Myanmar Now about his journey from a general hospital in Yangon to resistance-held territory in Sagaing Region, where he uses his medical expertise to support the resistance cause.

Medical doctors protest against the military dictatorship in Yangon in February, 2021 (Myanmar Now)

In the immediate days following the coup, Htet joined the CDM. With conviction in his heart, he refused to work under the newly installed junta, and led the disobedience movement at his Yangon hospital.

To continue doing his job outside of the regime’s system, Htet became involved in running a charity clinic providing medical services to women in Yangon.

But makeshift clinics soon became unsafe.

Junta forces began systematically raiding and dismantling them one by one. And in many instances, medical personnel were detained, interrogated, and brutally beaten.

“I felt that our freedom was robbed from us in every possible way: freedom to express, freedom to speak, even freedom to give healthcare to the needy,” Htet said.

As the CDM movement gained traction, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing identified doctors as a particular target and started rolling out a campaign against them.

“More than half of doctors in state-run hospitals joined the CDM and did not come back,” Min Aung Hliang said in a February 2022 address to regime officials obtained by Myanmar Now.

“All of them have been blacklisted and banned from leaving the country and their practitioner licenses have been revoked.”

Headshots of arrested medical staff from an article published in the New Light of Myanmar from November 2021 titled: “CDM doctors, nurses arrested for unofficial medical treatment to terrorists in Loikaw.”

From Yangon to Kachin State

Given the clampdown on medical personnel in the cities, Htet felt that his hands would be tied if he stayed in Yangon. He could feel the anti-junta movement growing, brewing, and he wanted to be a part of it.

“I didn’t think I’d make a good soldier,” Htet said. “So I thought it would be better to be involved as a doctor.”

Three months after the coup, Htet followed a friend’s lead and traveled two days north from Yangon to Laiza, a key town bordering China and home to the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO). There, Htet began working at a military hospital, treating Kachin Independence Army (KIA) soldiers wounded in clashes with junta forces.

“Before that I wasn’t quite used to treating trauma patients,” he said. “I was mostly familiar with gynecological problems. Even normal accident traumas were rare in my wards.”

Yet within two days of arriving in Kachin State, he found himself thrown into the deep end, responding to a range of new patients, from wounded soldiers requiring amputations, to others suffering vision loss and paralysis.

Every day, the doors of the military hospital swung open to admit 10 to 20 trauma patients, most of them no older than in their twenties. Among them, one young soldier, Myat Phyu, stood out in Htet’s memory. Wounded in the left leg, Myat Phyu had been hopeful, believing his recovery was on track.

But when a specialist surgeon assessed his leg, the truth shattered his optimism. The soldier needed to have his leg amputated. The weight of that moment has stayed with Htet ever since, a painful reminder of the reality of war.

“When he heard that he had to have an amputation, the change [in him] was quite sudden,” Htet recalled with emotion in his voice. “I can’t forget his reaction. Almost all the amputation patients show sadness, grief and desperation.”

Htet explained that those who face sudden extreme disabilities also often meet with the dark reality of severe psychological pain.

“But they are not the only ones,” he said. “Being in the battlefield is enough to cause mental trauma, whether injured or not. I have seen this a lot.”

“Even those familiar with the battlefield, such as KIA soldiers, suffer mental trauma,” he added.

After three months at the military hospital, Htet and 12 other medics were deployed to Mai Jai Yang—a KIA-controlled town some 40 miles south of Laiza—to assist local doctors with a Covid-19 outbreak. They remained there for seven months until the situation stabilised.

During this period, fighting started to intensify near the town of Laiza, shifting the need for medical resources to areas where People’s Defence Force (PDF), newly formed armed resistance groups under the National Unity Government (NUG), were actively engaged.

To be closer to those in need, Htet decided to relocate again to an area near Mohnyin Township in Kachin State. Accompanied by a small group of doctors, he set off on a one-and-a-half-day motorbike journey through forest roads to an isolated region primarily controlled by the KIA.

However, from their new base, the team’s ability to provide timely medical care was severely hindered by their remoteness, with many patients already near death by the time they arrived.

Myanmar’s notorious rainy season then restricted their ability to move. Encountering flooding and impassable roads, there was nowhere to go. The conditions forced the team to endure an eight month stay in the jungle. With the onset of winter and improved road conditions in December 2022, they were finally able to embark on their journey to Sagaing Region.

Medics under fire 

From Sagaing Region’s Katha Township, Htet and his small team collaborated with the anti-junta All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF). Due to the volatile security situation, they were forced to remain on the move as resistance groups in the area battled the junta for territorial control.

The medical team, consisting of three doctors and a nurse, often found themselves isolated, far from any civilian settlements. At times, their position was just 300-400 meters from the active battlefield, placing them in danger of incoming artillery fire.

In one incident, the team was besieged by junta troops while performing surgery on a patient with a gunshot wound to the thigh. As the patient lay on the operating table, a junta fighter plane unleashed two 500-pound bombs.

Htet and his colleagues narrowly escaped physical harm from the blast, but the psychological trauma lingered.

“The sound of planes passing by, even from a distance, would make us very alarmed and anxious for about a month,” Htet recalled.

The attack forced the team to evacuate together with seven patients, including three with severe leg injuries and one with a gunshot wound to the chest requiring a tube for drainage. They spent two days on the run from advancing troops.

“We had to cross the Ayeyarwady River not once but twice,” Htet said. “We had to constantly assess the safety of the routes we were taking.”

Assisted by four ABSDF soldiers, the team also had to transport a significant amount of medical equipment, including operating tables, oxygen cylinders, and surgical instruments.
In November 2023, Htet reached his current location in Sagaing Region’s Kawlin Township. They decided to make the move after a local doctor anticipated intense fighting between local PDF groups and junta forces in the region—more doctors would be needed.

On the way there, the team had several close calls with regime soldiers who caught wind of their presence in the area.

“Half an hour after our departure from one village, the junta troops arrived,” Htet said, explaining how they narrowly evaded capture.

“They searched everywhere for us.”

Map showing the doctor’s route from Laiza in 2021 thorough Kachin State to his current location in Sagaing Region

Stationed in Sagaing 

It’s been over a year since Htet arrived in Sagaing. In that time, he estimates that his team have treated over 150 combat-related injuries resulting from at least five major battles. Additionally, they have provided medical care to approximately 300 local civilians.

Htet pointed out that the most common injuries they encounter are caused by gunshots and a variety of bombs. Gunshot wounds primarily affect the hands and legs, he said, while blast injuries often result in severe damage to the lower limbs, sometimes affecting the entire body.

For soldiers wounded on the front lines, the journey to the hospital typically takes about two hours—a critical window where survival often hangs in the balance. The hospital is located in such a remote area that before the arrival of medical doctors two years ago, local villagers had to endure a two-day trek to reach the nearest doctor. A delay like that could often mean the difference between life and death.

With no electricity supply, the makeshift hospital operates solely on solar power and dynamos. Mobile networks have been down for two years, leaving Htet and his team reliant on satellite internet. The lack of electricity poses a significant challenge, particularly as it means that the team are unable to store blood. This leaves them entirely reliant on fresh blood donations.

“When battlefield injury patients arrive, we have to test their blood groups and then locate [relevant] blood group donors,” Htet explained. The team uses radio transmission devices to contact potential donors from PDF camps and local villages.

“It would be a piece of cake if there was a blood bank, but in such rural areas it is difficult to find the right people on the spot,” he said, emphasising the large amount of manpower and logistics required to find blood donors.

During battles, the team can face a sudden influx of patients, with as many as 10-15 arriving simultaneously. These surges can overwhelm the limited medical staff. Due to the lack of proper operating rooms, the team performs surgeries in improvised settings such as rural health care centres or schools.

Between battles, Htet offers training in basic medical skills to people from army camps and local villages. Obtaining medical supplies is another major challenge, as they typically have to be sourced from urban areas and are often difficult to transport.

Junta-appointed officials and soldiers regularly inspect cargo shipments to conflict zones, impeding the flow of essential drugs and equipment, especially those that could be used to treat combat-related injuries, Htet explained.

Suppliers who ship medical provisions to resistance areas have faced fines and arrest, forcing the transport of these essential goods underground. As a result, it can take one to two months for medical supplies to reach Htet’s team. This has created a shortage, even necessitating the reuse of single-use products.

Another demanding aspect of Htet’s work is managing unfamiliar medical cases. Sometimes he has no choice but to conduct operations on patients that he has never performed before. Though nerve-wracking, failing to do these surgeries would put his  patients’ lives at stake.

Htet spoke with appreciation for the CDM doctors network, a lifeline organised by the Ministry of Health under the NUG. This network allows him to consult specialists remotely, bringing critical expertise to even the most isolated corners of the conflict.

For Htet, the network is not just a resource—it’s a bridge connecting frontline medics to the support they need to save lives.

“What I have experienced is not much compared to those fighting on the front line,” Htet said, with a sensitivity mirrored in the final lines of his poem – “Man with Trauma.” Despite the hardships of practicing medicine in a war zone, he continues to remain focused on his patients: “I say a prayer for those/Who bear more traumas than I do.”

*Htet is a pseudonym used for security concerns.

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