Healthcare For the People, By the People
To save lives, the international community must step up and robustly support the people of Myanmar in providing lifesaving humanitarian aid, including healthcare, medicine, and other emergency assistance.
In recent weeks, the military junta has continued its all-out assault on healthcare across Myanmar through targeted airstrikes, forced closures of hospitals, and ongoing blockages of aid routes. As a result of the junta’s violence, life-threatening humanitarian needs are drastically escalating around the country—particularly for displaced communities who are facing surges of skin infections, malaria, and tuberculosis. In defiance of the junta’s tyranny, and at great risk to their own lives, Myanmar’s healthcare professionals of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), community-based organizations (CBOs), and communities are making tireless efforts to meet these dire needs by treating patients wherever they can and building people-led healthcare infrastructure.
On 25 January, a junta airstrike targeted a district hospital in Kyaukme, northern Shan State, killing at least three people, including one male patient and two women public health workers who were members of the CDM. The bombing critically injured dozens of patients and completely destroyed most of the hospital’s buildings. A week later, just after midnight on 31 January 2025, the junta bombed a hospital in resistance-controlled Singu Township, Mandalay Region. Meanwhile, in Mandalay Township, the junta has ordered seven private hospitals to close based on claims that the hospitals employ CDM health workers.
Across Myanmar, internally displaced persons (IDPs)—forced to flee their homes because of the junta’s violence—have been suffering from skin infections spreading throughout their communities. In Rakhine State, local humanitarian responders have reported an uncontrolled spread of scabies, ringworm, and other skin infections in IDP camps over the past five months, particularly in Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Ramree, and Thandwe Townships. Meanwhile, the junta continues its complete blockage of aid routes, intentionally preventing the delivery of assistance to these communities.
In Kachin State, in the Aungmyay 2 IDP camp located in Waingmaw Township, a ringworm outbreak has been ongoing for five months, affecting all households in the camp. Healthcare support for these IDPs comes from local organizations, including the Kachin Baptist Convention and Kachin Backpack. One IDP woman there told Kachin News Group, “The most affected are infants and the elderly. Some have ringworm so severe that it covers their entire face, and many infants are suffering with it all over their bodies. The infection is causing a lot of distress.” In both Kachin and Rakhine States, adequate treatment, much less total eradication of these infections, is near impossible due to extremely limited access to medicine and inadequate access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in the IDP camps.
With these dire humanitarian needs mounting as a result of intensifying junta violence, the people of Myanmar—including ethnic resistance organizations and CDM health workers—are stopping at nothing to protect the right to health across the country. Last week, the National Unity Government announced that it has set up “106 hospitals, over 800 clinics, and approximately 100 mobile clinics across 190 townships,” treating over 950,000 patients, since the Spring Revolution began in 2021. In the liberated areas of Karenni State, there are now four people-led hospitals, including a hospital run by the O-1 Medical Team, a group established in 2021 by CDM medical students from the University of Medicine (1) Yangon Students’ Union. In 2024 alone, the O1-Medical Team’s hospital—which staffs six doctors, seven medical students, and around 30 nurses—performed 499 major surgeries, including 195 emergency surgeries. Also in resistance-controlled territory are medical schools, such as Karenni Medical College in Karenni State and the School of Medical Science in Kachin State, established by members of the CDM to train the next generation of healthcare professionals for a new Myanmar.
What has been made abundantly clear is that humanitarian aid through the illegal junta cannot and will never reach those in the direst need across Myanmar. Moreover, aid through the junta has been proven to put communities’ safety and security at grave risk as the junta notoriously weaponizes aid for its military and political advantage. Instead, it is the local humanitarian responders—including CDM networks, civil society organizations, CBOs, and ethnic resistance organizations—who have the access, trust, and competencies to get aid where it needs to go to save lives, protect human rights, and meet community needs, with urgency and dignity. From now on, the international community must stop attempting to channel humanitarian aid through the junta—the creator and exacerbator of Myanmar’s humanitarian and human rights crisis.
To save lives, the international community must step up and robustly support the people of Myanmar in providing lifesaving humanitarian aid, including healthcare, medicine, and other emergency assistance. This support must be directed through locally led cross-border channels to trusted local frontline responders. It’s time for the international community to rally behind local organizations by “forming meaningful and equal partnerships” with them, backed by long-term investment.
True allies of democracy and principled humanitarian actors must no longer delay putting their full support behind the Myanmar people’s revolution and providing humanitarian aid directly to the people through locally led cross-border channels. In tandem, to prevent further irreparable harm, the United States must immediately lift its foreign aid freeze—which has unconscionably and significantly impeded the provision of lifesaving healthcare to vulnerable communities in Myanmar and around the world.
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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.
Resources from the past week
Statements and Press Releases
By 361 Organizations
Online Press Conference – Global human rights network removes junta-controlled MNHRC
By CSO Working Group on Independent National Human Rights Institution (Burma/Myanmar)
By CSO Working Group on Independent National Human Rights Institution (Burma/Myanmar)
By Fortify Rights
Trump freezes $39 million for rights, democracy, and media in Myanmar
By Human Rights Myanmar
Myanmar’s Military Continues to Commit Massive Rights Violations Four Years into its Illegal Coup
By Human Rights Now
By Karenni Human Rights Group
By National Unity Government, Chin Brotherhood, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National League of Democracy and National Unity Consultative Council
By National Unity Government, Chin Brotherhood, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National League of Democracy and National Unity Consultative Council
Reports
By Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Interim Humanitarian Access Report 2025: Karen State, Myanmar (31 Jan 2025)
By Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Institute
Running Out Of Time: The Escalation of Human Rights Violations in Karenni State in 2024
By Karenni Human Rights Group
By Shan Human Rights Foundation
By Shan Human Rights Foundation
Four years after the Burmese military’s attempted coup
By Women’s Peace Network
Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”
