MW

5/5 - Overall, a brutal reminder of the scale of this issue; every casualty is a shattered family, a lost loved one; for survivors, a grim future of physical & psychological anguish, with limited resources to support them. End. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

4/5 - Similarly, in Northern Shan, complex dynamics related to the MNDAA's withdrawal from Lashio, the SACs push northeast through Nawngkhio, Kyaukme & Hsipaw, and movement of IDPs, mean high levels of casualties across the region.

3/5 - Notable is increase in casualties in Toungup & Gwa townships in southern Rakhine; areas which had no previous contamination, so little risk education or victim assistance infrastructure here. Trend likely to continue as AA pushes south & east; SAC will lay more mines here.

2/5 - Shan, Rakhine & the Dry Zone remain the areas with the highest casualty figures, related to conflict dynamics & displacements in these areas; generally, IDPs fleeing into new contaminated areas = higher casualty rates, although local dynamics vary.

1/5 - According to data collected by @unicef.org in Myanmar, 350+ ppl were killed or maimed by landmines & UXO in Myanmar, in the 1st 6 months of 2025. This includes 96 children; 23 of these were killed. Data collection remains a challenge; the real figure is likely higher.

2/2 - Local humanitarians are already carrying out response work; the coming days will be grim as news begins to emerge from Sagaing, Mandalay, Toungoo and other areas badly impacted. More than ever, local humanitarians will need all the support they can get.

1/2 - After today's devastating 7.7 earthquake in central Myanmar, the next few days may see significant aftershocks. Please share these images with those who may be impacted in Myanmar & the border regions. #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar

According to local CBOs, Feb saw spikes in displacement figures across all 7 districts of Karen State in SE Myanmar. 1.1+ million displaced across the region, w/ Kler Lwee Htoo (B3/Nyaunglebin) most heavily impacted area. SAC airstrikes on civilian targets driving most new displacements. #Myanmar

ကော့ကရိတ် ကွီလုံတိုင်ရွာ၌ မပေါက်ကွဲသေးသည့် ဗုံးဆော့ကစားရာမှ ပေါက်ကွဲပြီး ကလေး ၂ ဦးသေဆုံး၊ ၂ ဦးဒဏ်ရာရ - ကေအိုင်စီ - KIC News ဇန်နဝါရီ ၃၀ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၅ ခုနှစ်။ ကေအိုင်စီ ကေအဲန်ယူ-ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံး ဒူးပလာယာခရိုင်/တပ်မဟာ-၆ နယ်မြေ၊ ကော့ကရိတ်မြို့နယ်၊ ကွီလုံ တိုင်ကျေးရွာ၌ မပေါက်ကွဲသေးသည့် ဗုံးကိုယူဆော့ ကစားမိရာမှ ပေါက်ကွဲပြီး ...

Two children in Brigade 6 area (Kawkareik), SE Myanmar were killed by unexploded ordnance on Jan 28th; two more were severely wounded. 100s of children were killed/maimed in 2024 by mines/UXO in Myanmar, 2025 off to a grim start. #WhatsHappeninginMyanmar

kicnews.org/2025/01/%E1%...

MM Now has issued a correction in their article saying the Chinese FM did not mention Lashio specifically, as they originally reported, but they say other sources still claim this. Regardless June is a long way off!

Kokang army to withdraw from Lashio under Chinese-brokered ceasefire with Myanmar junta The agreement comes after months of pressure from Chinese officials on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), such as closing border crossings into MNDAA-held territory and holding the...

Chinese announce ceasefire agreement reached in Northern Shan between MNDAA & SAC, terms of which return control of Lashio to regime, by June. In return, multiple border crossings reportedly immediately re-opened by Chinese authorities.

myanmar-now.org/en/news/koka...

Latest update from local Karenni humanitarian network CTER shows ongoing extensive displacement in 3 northern townships ; 220k+ displaced & host communities face critical food security challenges, compounded by lower crop yields in recent harvest. Ongoing airstrikes also an ever present threat.

'Humanitarian clearance' refers to a specific methodology which makes all reasonable efforts to ensure an area is totally clear. This sadly isn't happening yet in MM due to lack of funding & resources, but we hope this will start to shift in 2025.

www.unmas.org/en/5-pillars...

You're correct, resistance forces & civilians (i.e. TNLA & civilian in Karenni) do ad hoc clearance wherever they can; unfortunately they don't have the training or equipment to ensure this is comprehensive. Not their fault, they are incredibly brave & doing the best they can w/ what is available.

Sadly, without the funding, resources and training support to conduct humanitarian clearance operations, there are limited options to mitigate these risks, outside of imparting messages like these. Please share these w/anyone who might need them, or DM me for more info.

Local actors on the ground also take great risks in delivering this education to children on the ground in conflict zones; local CBO personnel, volunteers, religious actors, and others all brave conflict to try and limit the impact of these weapons on children.

These images are educational materials jointly developed by local & international mine action actors, and are used to educate children specifically on the risks of these weapons. Posters, leaflets, games, role plays, mobile phone apps, coloring books, etc are all used to try and impart key messages.

Tough to contemplate upcoming Children's Day in context of Myanmar. Hundreds of children were killed or maimed by landmines & UXO in 2024; hundreds more by airstrikes & artillery fire. No humanitarian clearance programs are functional, so there is little response available aside from education.

Thanks!

Myanmar’s volunteer landmine clearance expert Phoe Zaw has removed over 100 landmines in Myanmar’s Karenni State, where a war has been fought against the military since it staged the 2021 coup overthrowing the elected civilian government of Aung ...

2/2 - I'll share info here on the humanitarian situation & local responses, which are far more impactful & relevant than internationally-led interventions & info on the scourge of explosive weapons. Also on the super brave folks in 🇲🇲 dealing with this stuff, like him:

english.dvb.no/myanmars-vol...

Myanmar Topped World For Landmine Casualties in 2023, Monitor Says As its military fortunes slide, the Myanmar army has ramped up its use of antipersonnel mines.

1/2 - Let's get this started; I support local responses to the humanitarian crisis in 🇲🇲 as well as help civilians there stay safe from explosive weapons. Myanmar is world #1 in terms of casualties from landmines & UXO, big % of these casualties were children.

thediplomat.com/2024/11/myan...