# Myanmar Civil War - Canonical dossier: [Web edition]() - Markdown edition: [Plain-text edition]() - Issue: Issue 005 - Rubric: Fragmentation / Air War - Byline: Totally Fine Foundation editorial desk - Reading time: 11 min - Last reviewed: 2026-08-21 > Five years after the coup, Myanmar is measured in ledgers that refuse to add up — a UN-verified civilian death floor, a media-report tally five times larger, three displacement counts, and a case archive built for trials that have not happened. More than 1,200 armed groups make it the world's most fragmented war, and access is so thin that every number is a floor. ## Cover - Kicker: Field dossier / Asia-Pacific / active war - Cover lines: The UN has verified more than 7,700 civilians killed. It says the real number is far higher. / A separate count reached 100,114 dead — and it is a floor, not a total. / More than 1,200 armed groups. The world's most fragmented war. / 16 million people need aid. The appeal reaches for 4.9 million. #### Hero visual provenance - Caption: The mass rejection of the February 2021 coup that became a war — one the UN can only partly count, and never as a single number. - Alt text: Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar in 2021. - Credit: သူထွန်း, via Wikimedia Commons - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0 - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Metrics ### 7,700+ — Civilians killed since the coup (UN-verified) - Category: human cost / civilian - Caveat: OHCHR verified via credible sources (incl. \>1,650 women, \>1,000 children); 'the real number is likely much higher'. A floor, civilian-only — never merged with the media-report tally. **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Verified, and called too low. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two death ledgers. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 100,114 — Conflict-related fatalities (media-report tally) - Category: human cost / cumulative - Caveat: ACLED rolling media-report count as of ~1 Jul 2026; a different method and denominator from OHCHR — do NOT merge. Also a floor, biased by blocked access. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ### 3.6M — Internally displaced - Category: displacement - Caveat: Highest on record; UNHCR live IDP figure 3,775,600 (8 Jun 2026); conflict and earthquake together; access restrictions make it a floor. Distinct from refugees. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Country dashboard and Humanitarian Update no. 51]() (`mmr-ocha-dashboard-2026`); [UNHCR — Myanmar Emergency / Operational Data Portal]() (`mmr-unhcr-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Three counts, never summed. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: three displacement counts. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 16M+ — People in need (2026) - Category: humanitarian need - Caveat: OCHA plan renders 16.2M (\>45% of the in-scope population), incl. 5M children; a planning estimate, distinct from the 4.9M targeted. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026]() (`mmr-ocha-hnrp-2026`) ### 1,200+ — Distinct armed groups - Category: fragmentation - Caveat: ACLED: 'quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition.' A fragmentation measure, not a count of equal or comparable factions. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Not two sides, but more than a thousand. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: a fragmented actor map. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 982+ — Civilians killed by airstrikes, 2025 - Category: human cost / air war - Caveat: OHCHR: at least 982 killed by airstrikes and at least 287 children in 2025 — the deadliest year for children since the coup. Airstrike events targeting civilians tripled 2023→2024 (ACLED). **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`); [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ## The war that will not be totalled. ### Two ledgers of the dead, and why they will not add up Myanmar keeps its death toll in two registers, and the discipline is to keep them apart. In February 2026, five years after the coup, OHCHR told the Human Rights Council that credible sources had verified the killing of more than 7,700 civilians — more than 1,650 women and more than 1,000 among them children — and added, in the same breath, that the real number is likely much higher. That clause is the whole method: OHCHR vouches only for what it can corroborate, and corroboration in Myanmar is thin. The other register is ACLED's. Reading media reports of violence, the monitor logged 100,114 conflict-related fatalities since the coup, a threshold it crossed around 1 July 2026. The two are not the same number counted twice: OHCHR verifies civilian deaths and stops where the evidence stops; ACLED tallies all conflict-related fatalities from open reporting and warns such counts are frequently the most biased and poorly reported component of conflict data. Both are floors. This dossier publishes neither as the war's total, because no such total exists. **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`); [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Two registers, never merged. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two death ledgers side by side. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A war with more than a thousand sides The shorthand of government versus rebels does not fit this war, and the data is what breaks it. ACLED has registered more than 1,200 distinct armed groups and calls it quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition. Three blocs sit inside that count: the State Administration Council military, which seized power on 1 February 2021 under Min Aung Hlaing and holds the state, the air force and much of the centre; the National Unity Government, formed that April by ousted lawmakers, waging what it calls a defensive war through its People's Defence Forces; and a mosaic of ethnic armed organisations, some older than the coup by decades, holding the edges. In October 2023 the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched Operation 1027, the gravest military challenge the junta had faced. The International Crisis Group reads the country exactly this way — a military clinging to the centre, a parallel government, and numerous ethnic armies that coordinate with but do not answer to it — rather than as a two-sided fight. The fragmentation is not a detail. It is why the war is hard to see, hard to count, and hard to end. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`); [International Crisis Group — Myanmar analysis hub]() (`mmr-icg-framing`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: A country pulled apart, not two sides. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: fragmented actor structure. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The air war, and how it is measured Whatever the total, the direction of the violence is documented, and it points overwhelmingly at the military. ACLED found military airstrike events targeting civilians more than tripled — from 253 in 2023 to 776 in 2024 — and recorded 118 incidents of military mass killing in 2024. By its coding the military was responsible for 76 per cent of incidents targeting civilians that year, up from 68 per cent; the remainder belongs to resistance and ethnic forces, and is attributed to them, not erased. OHCHR puts calendar-year figures on the same campaign: at least 982 civilians killed by airstrikes in 2025 and at least 287 children — the deadliest year for children since the coup. Amnesty traced the campaign through its fuel, reporting at least 109,604 metric tonnes of aviation fuel imported in 2025, a 69 per cent jump. The single worst documented strike came on 10 December 2025, when the military bombed the general hospital in Mrauk-U; OHCHR recorded at least 33 killed in what it called an apparently deliberate strike, quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`); [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`); [Amnesty International — Country hub and coup-anniversary reporting]() (`mmr-amnesty-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: The campaign, followed through its supply chain. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the air war traced through fuel. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The ledger that shrank OCHA reads the war as a humanitarian accountant, and its 2026 plan is a study in a floor sinking below the need. It counts more than 16 million people requiring life-saving assistance, five million of them children — 16.2 million in the plan document, more than 45 per cent of the population within the area it analysed. Against that, the plan reaches for only 4.9 million of the most vulnerable, a steep contraction from the 6.7 million targeted in 2025, which OCHA attributes to hard decisions and revised analyses, rather than an improvement on the ground. The money tells the same story: a US$890 million appeal, down from US$1.4 billion in 2025, after a year barely a quarter funded. Layered over all of it is a shock the war did not cause. On 28 March 2025 a magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck central Myanmar; OCHA counts around two million people newly affected and nearly 70 health facilities damaged, on top of the conflict caseload. The quake is a compounding disaster, not the war's origin — and its relief was shaped by the war, with monitors reporting the military obstructed aid to opposition areas and kept bombing. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026]() (`mmr-ocha-hnrp-2026`); [UN OCHA — Country dashboard and Humanitarian Update no. 51]() (`mmr-ocha-dashboard-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: The floor sank because money and access did. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the appeal shrinking against the need. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Detention, the Rohingya, and what the law can reach The war's other ledger is kept in cells and case files. OHCHR records some 30,000 people arrested since the coup and nearly 23,000 still detained; Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, citing the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, report that more than 2,200 have reportedly died in custody, a figure flagged as likely higher. The naming of crimes is left to the bodies entitled to do it: the IIMM preserves an archive of more than 1,300 sources and almost 600 eyewitness testimonies, but convicts no one, and the one warrant application against the junta's commander — the ICC prosecutor's November 2024 request over the 2017 crimes against the Rohingya — reaches back before this war. One population sits at the sharp end of this war and an older one. About 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine under what Human Rights Watch calls a system of apartheid and persecution, while nearly a million more live in Bangladesh camps. The danger now comes from more than one direction: HRW documents the Arakan Army, itself fighting the junta, imposing forced labour and detention on Rohingya after taking Maungdaw. This is context carried with attribution, not a verdict — and conduct is not symmetrical: the evidence attributes the overwhelming bulk of documented atrocities to the military, while recording, actor by actor, that some anti-junta and ethnic forces have harmed civilians too. **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`); [United Nations (IIMM) — Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar — annual report]() (`mmr-iimm-2025`); [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Context carried with attribution, not a verdict. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Rohingya between two fires. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Refugee routes and host-country data According to the material attributed to UNHCR, a route-based snapshot of data and trends for refugees from Myanmar as of the end of July 2026 reportedly concerns Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and reportedly includes an attached infographic with the referenced data and trends. **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`) ## Actors and positions ### State Administration Council (SAC) / Myanmar military - Role: The military that seized power on 1 February 2021; holds the state, the air force and much of the centre. - Confidence: high - Position: Frames the coup as a lawful response to unproven 2020 electoral fraud, casts itself as restoring order through an 'election roadmap,' and labels the opposition and ethnic armies 'terrorists.' - Supporter framing: Presents its campaign as counter-terrorism and a return to constitutional order. - Opposing account: The NUG, ethnic armies and rights bodies describe a violent seizure of power sustained by airstrikes and mass arrests. - Independent assessment: The military alleged 8.6 million voter irregularities without presenting evidence; OHCHR, the ICC prosecutor, ACLED and HRW document extensive airstrikes on schools, markets, IDP camps and hospitals and more than 30,000 arrests. Its framing is a party-position, not corroborated. **Source trail:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`); [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ### National Unity Government (NUG) and People's Defence Forces - Role: A parallel government formed by ousted lawmakers in April 2021, waging a self-described defensive war. - Confidence: high - Position: Claims to be Myanmar's legitimate government representing the 2020 mandate, fighting for a federal democracy, and rejects the 2025 junta election. - Supporter framing: Its broad domestic support and the growth of the defence forces reflect mass rejection of the coup. - Opposing account: The military labels it a terrorist organisation; some monitors record abuses by individual anti-junta groups. - Independent assessment: Civilian protection is not uniform: the US State Department and OHCHR received allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture and sexual violence by some anti-military groups — an estimated ~235 killed by such groups in 2024, including ~150 civilians. A materially smaller scale than military atrocities, but real, and attributed. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ### Ethnic armed organisations (incl. the Three Brotherhood Alliance) - Role: Long-established ethnic armies pursuing autonomy and territorial goals; among the most effective anti-junta forces. - Confidence: high - Position: Pursue their own autonomy and territorial aims, actor by actor, and led Operation 1027 against the junta. - Supporter framing: Framed by allies as the most effective resistance to military rule. - Opposing account: The military calls them terrorists; rights monitors document abuses by particular groups. - Independent assessment: Battlefield gains are real, but conduct varies sharply by group — HRW documents the Arakan Army imposing forced labour, arbitrary detention and movement restrictions on Rohingya after taking Maungdaw. Assess each on its own record; no blanket 'resistance' verdict. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`) ### Rohingya and other affected civilians - Role: The population bearing the war's direct human cost — conscripted, displaced and killed by more than one armed actor. - Confidence: high - Position: Survival priorities are protection, safe passage, and an end to persecution and forced displacement. - Supporter framing: Humanitarian and rights actors emphasise civilian protection and the specific vulnerability of the Rohingya. - Opposing account: Both the military and the Arakan Army are documented committing abuses against Rohingya communities. - Independent assessment: About 3.6 million are internally displaced; about 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine and nearly a million in Bangladesh camps. This is the group with the least power and the greatest documented harm — not an equal-sided dispute, and warranting no false parity with armed actors. **Source trail:** [UNHCR — Myanmar Emergency / Operational Data Portal]() (`mmr-unhcr-2026`); [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`) ## Claims and evidence ### The military seized power to correct massive 2020 election fraud and is restoring order and democracy. - Claimant: State Administration Council / Myanmar military - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: The military alleged 8.6 million irregularities but presented no evidence; no credible body substantiated systemic fraud. - Independent assessment: False: the 2020 NLD win was large and unsubstantiated as fraudulent, and 'restoring order' is contradicted by ~100,114 killed (ACLED) / 7,700+ verified civilians (OHCHR), ~3.6 million displaced, and a junta that controls only part of the country. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`); [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: 'Restoring order,' contradicted by the record. - Alt text: Security forces confront demonstrators in Myanmar. - Credit: Voice of America Burmese - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The December 2025 three-phase election is a legitimate step toward civilian democratic government. - Claimant: State Administration Council - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: The NLD is banned, Aung San Suu Kyi jailed, media unfree, criticism criminalised, and voting could not occur across large contested areas. - Independent assessment: Disputed on a free-and-fair standard: observers called it a sham, and more than 400 were prosecuted under an 'election protection' law. **Source trail:** [Amnesty International — Country hub and coup-anniversary reporting]() (`mmr-amnesty-2026`) ### The March 2025 earthquake was a natural disaster separate from the war, and relief was impartial. - Claimant: State Administration Council framing - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: The quake was natural, but its humanitarian outcome was conflict-shaped. - Independent assessment: Disputed: the UN Special Rapporteur reported many reports of the military preventing aid, and HRW says the military obstructed lifesaving services in opposition areas and carried out 550+ attacks in the two months after. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`); [UN OCHA — Country dashboard and Humanitarian Update no. 51]() (`mmr-ocha-dashboard-2026`) ### Anti-junta resistance forces uniformly protect civilians. - Claimant: Broad pro-resistance framing - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: Assess actor by actor: some anti-junta groups are documented harming civilians. - Independent assessment: Disputed: most anti-junta violence is far smaller in scale than military atrocities, but real — the US State Department and OHCHR recorded killings, torture and sexual violence by some groups, and HRW documents the Arakan Army oppressing Rohingya. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`); [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ## Language record ### OHCHR / ASG Brands Kehris - Role: UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights - Context: Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup, February 2026. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`) ### OHCHR - Role: UN Human Rights Office - Context: On the 10 December 2025 airstrike on the Mrauk-U general hospital, which killed at least 33. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup]() (`mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026`) ### ACLED - Role: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data - Context: On registering more than 1,200 distinct armed groups in the civil war, around 1 July 2026. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger]() (`mmr-acled-2026`) ### UN OCHA - Role: Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026 - Context: On reaching for only 4.9 million in 2026 — hard decisions and revised analyses, not improvement on the ground. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [UN OCHA — Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026]() (`mmr-ocha-hnrp-2026`) ### Amnesty International - Role: Coup-anniversary reporting - Context: Tracing the air war through its supply chain. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Amnesty International — Country hub and coup-anniversary reporting]() (`mmr-amnesty-2026`) ### Human Rights Watch - Role: Myanmar country reporting - Context: On the Rohingya still in Rakhine State; HRW's characterisation, attributed. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting]() (`mmr-hrw-2026`) ## Timeline ### 2021-02-01 — Military coup: Tatmadaw seizes power, arrests Aung San Suu Kyi - Event type: conflict\_start - Confidence: high Myanmar's military (Tatmadaw) overthrew the elected government in a coup on February 1, 2021, arresting State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected officials. Nationwide civil disobedience and protests followed, met with violent crackdowns. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Myanmar — ACLED Conflict Tracker]() (`src-myanmar-acled`) ### 2023-10-27 — Operation 1027 launched — major resistance offensive begins - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high The Three Brotherhood Alliance (MNDAA, TNLA, AA) launched Operation 1027, capturing dozens of military outposts and border trade towns in northern Shan State within weeks. The offensive marked a significant shift in the balance of the conflict. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Myanmar — ACLED Conflict Tracker]() (`src-myanmar-acled`); [International Crisis Group — Myanmar Crisis — International Crisis Group]() (`src-myanmar-icg`) ### 2024-08-03 — Lashio falls to MNDAA — Shan State capital captured for first time in history - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) captured Lashio, the largest city in northern Shan State and the headquarters of the junta's Northeastern Command, marking the first time an ethnic armed organization captured a regional military command HQ since independence. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Myanmar — ACLED Conflict Tracker]() (`src-myanmar-acled`); [UNOCHA — Myanmar Humanitarian Update — UNOCHA]() (`src-myanmar-ocha`) ### 2026-07-31 — Humanitarian organizations report 76 access incidents in July 2026 - Event type: humanitarian\_access - Confidence: medium Humanitarian organizations reported 76 incidents across 10 states and regions in July 2026 that hindered delivery of life-saving assistance to approximately 200,000 shock-affected people. The total was 27 percent below the previous month and 24 percent below the 2026 monthly average, the lowest since January 2026, according to the organizations. Rakhine accounted for 42 percent of reported constraints, followed by Sagaing at 14 percent and northern Shan at 9 percent; conflict-related insecurity remained the primary impediment. Humanitarian organizations said the decrease may partly reflect reduced humanitarian movement during the monsoon season, particularly in flood-affected areas. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-myanmar-civi-editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-08-20 — Republic of Korea announced USD 5 million for WFP food assistance in Myanmar - Event type: international\_response - Confidence: medium According to the August 20, 2026 WFP report carried by ReliefWeb, the Republic of Korea announced an additional USD 5 million contribution to WFP for food and nutrition assistance in Myanmar. The report said the funding is intended to support REACH Phase 2, under which WFP plans relief food assistance for 140,000 people and nutrition support for 15,000 children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women. The report said WFP analysis projected that up to 5 million people could be pushed into acute food insecurity if elevated food and fuel prices persist. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-myanmar-civi-editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-07-31 — UNHCR-attributed route-based snapshot of Myanmar refugee data and trends as of end-July 2026 - Event type: displacement\_update - Confidence: low According to the material attributed to UNHCR, a route-based snapshot of data and trends for refugees from Myanmar as of the end of July 2026 reportedly concerns Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and reportedly includes an attached infographic. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-myanmar-civi-editorial-2026-08`) ## Visual essay ### Gallery image 01 #### Visual provenance - Caption: The 2020 election produced a landslide; the military called it fraud and seized power, and the country did not consent quietly. - Alt text: A large anti-coup demonstration in Myanmar, 2021. - Credit: သူထွန်း, via Wikimedia Commons - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0 - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Gallery image 02 #### Visual provenance - Caption: The crackdown that followed became an air war; by 2025 airstrikes were the deadliest single cause of verified civilian death. - Alt text: Security forces confront demonstrators in Myanmar, 2021. - Credit: Voice of America Burmese - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Linked visual references ### Evidence preservation for future trials - Photographer: Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar - Publisher: United Nations (IIMM) - Recognition: UN mandate since 2018 - Why it matters: The UN body that collects and preserves evidence of the gravest crimes in Myanmar since 2011 — an archive held for prosecutions that have not yet happened. - Original: [Open reference]() #### A custodian of proof, not a court. The IIMM does not convict; it preserves. Its archive — more than 1,300 sources, almost 600 eyewitness testimonies — is read here as the evidentiary floor beneath a war whose crimes have reached no courtroom. The reference matters because most post-coup conduct sits, for now, outside any court: the ICC and ICJ measures reach only atrocities before 2021. The IIMM is where the record is kept in the meantime. It counts evidence, never the dead, and its findings are attributed positions held for jurisdictions that may one day claim them — not a verdict this dossier or anyone else has yet been able to deliver. ## Media desk ### Myanmar civil war — territorial control - Publisher: Wikimedia Commons - Creator: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Date: Maintained file (date-stamped revision) - Media type: map - Rights mode: direct\_image - Placement: Orientation map / contested geography - Caption: The map is why the war is hard to see: a military clinging to the centre, a parallel government, and a mosaic of ethnic armies holding the edges — more than 1,200 armed groups in all. - Why it matters: Reusable orientation asset, pinned to a dated revision; crowd-maintained from open-source reporting, so it orients rather than certifies any front line. The map belongs early because 'government versus rebels' does not fit this war. It is quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition, and the map is the first place that fragmentation becomes legible — with the standing caveat that a crowd-sourced rendering is approximate. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: A crowd-maintained OSINT map: the military holds the centre while ethnic armies and resistance forces hold the edges. Approximate, as depicted by Wikimedia contributors — never evidence of a specific event. - Alt text: Map of Myanmar showing approximate territorial control in the civil war. - Credit: Yuet Man Lee - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Two death ledgers, kept apart - Publisher: OHCHR and ACLED - Creator: Totally Fine Foundation - Date: 2026 - Media type: infographic - Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only - Placement: Human-cost data surface - Caption: The single most important discipline in reading Myanmar's toll: OHCHR verifies civilian deaths and stops where evidence stops; ACLED tallies all conflict deaths from media reports. Neither is the war's total. - Why it matters: The two numbers are not the same measurement counted twice; presenting them side by side, method-labelled, is the only honest way to show them. This surface exists to prevent the commonest error in coverage of Myanmar: collapsing a verified minimum and a media-report tally into one headline, or worse, adding them. They are kept apart, dated, and each attributed to its author. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Two registers of the dead, never merged: OHCHR's 7,700+ verified civilian killings beside ACLED's 100,114 media-report tally — different methods, different denominators, both floors. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: OHCHR 7,700 verified civilian deaths beside ACLED's 100,114 media-report tally. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Source readings ### The count the UN will vouch for, and calls too low. - Registry ID: `mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026` - Publisher: OHCHR - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-02-01 - Registry title: Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup - Editorial note: The verified civilian death floor — and the caveat that the real number is far higher. - Original: [Open source]() In February 2026, five years after the coup, OHCHR told the Human Rights Council it had verified more than 7,700 civilian killings — and said the real number is likely much higher. The Assistant Secretary-General reported credible sources had verified the killing of more than 7,700 civilians since the take-over, including more than 1,650 women and more than 1,000 children, adding in the same breath that the real number is likely much higher. That clause is the method: OHCHR vouches only for what it can corroborate, and corroboration in Myanmar is thin. The office puts calendar-year figures on the air war: at least 982 civilians killed by airstrikes in 2025 and at least 287 children — the deadliest year for children since the coup. The single worst documented strike hit the Mrauk-U general hospital on 10 December 2025, killing at least 33 in what OHCHR called an apparently deliberate attack. #### Takeaways - Every figure is a verified floor, not a total — civilian-only, never merged with ACLED's media-report tally. - Around 30,000 have been arrested and nearly 23,000 remain detained since the coup. - The 982 airstrike deaths in 2025 hold as OHCHR's figure; the Mrauk-U strike is the deadliest on a healthcare facility since the coup. #### Visual provenance - Caption: OHCHR's verified 7,700+ against ACLED's 100,114 — kept apart, both floors, neither the war's total. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 7,700 verified civilian deaths beside 100,114 media-report fatalities. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A war with more than a thousand sides. - Registry ID: `mmr-acled-2026` - Publisher: ACLED - Source type: research - Published: 2026-07-01 - Registry title: Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger - Editorial note: A media-report tally, five times larger and a different measurement — never merged with OHCHR. - Original: [Open source]() Reading media reports of violence, ACLED logged 100,114 conflict-related fatalities since the coup — and registered more than 1,200 distinct armed groups, calling it quotation omitted from the machine-readable edition. The tally crossed 100,114 around 1 July 2026. It is not OHCHR's number counted again: ACLED tallies all conflict-related fatalities from open reporting and warns such counts are frequently the most biased and poorly reported component of conflict data. It is a floor, distorted by shuttered newsrooms and blocked access. ACLED's own coding also maps the direction of violence: military airstrike events targeting civilians more than tripled from 253 in 2023 to 776 in 2024, and by its count the military was responsible for 76 per cent of incidents targeting civilians in 2024 — the remainder attributed to resistance and ethnic forces, not erased. #### Takeaways - A rolling media-report tally, not a verified toll — never merged with OHCHR's 7,700 or a single-year figure. - The 1,200-armed-groups figure is a fragmentation measure, not a count of equal factions. - ACLED data is proprietary; the figures are rebuilt natively here with attribution. #### Visual provenance - Caption: ACLED's ledger: 100,114 conflict-related deaths since the coup and more than 1,200 armed groups — the world's most fragmented war. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 100,114 conflict fatalities and more than 1,200 armed groups. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The ledger that shrank below the need. - Registry ID: `mmr-ocha-hnrp-2026` - Publisher: UN OCHA - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2025-12-10 - Registry title: Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026 - Editorial note: A floor sinking below the need: the appeal shrank because money and access did. - Original: [Open source]() OCHA's 2026 plan counts more than 16 million people needing life-saving aid, five million of them children — and reaches for barely a third of them. The plan renders people-in-need as 16.2 million, more than 45 per cent of the population within the area it analysed. Against that it targets only 4.9 million of the most vulnerable, a steep contraction from the 6.7 million targeted in 2025 that OCHA attributes to hard decisions and revised analyses, rather than an improvement on the ground. The money tells the same story: a US$890 million appeal, down from US$1.4 billion in 2025, after a year in which barely a quarter of the plan was funded. Layered over all of it is the 28 March 2025 magnitude-7.7 earthquake, which left around two million people newly affected — a compounding shock, not the war's origin. #### Takeaways - A planning estimate, not a census; keep people-in-need, targeted and displaced as distinct figures. - The contraction is scope and funding, explicitly not recovery on the ground. - The earthquake is a compounding disaster layered on the war; its relief was itself shaped by the conflict. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The ledger that shrank: 16.2 million in need, but the plan reaches for only 4.9 million (down from 6.7 million) on a US$890 million appeal — a contraction of scope and money, not need. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 16.2 million in need, 4.9 million targeted, US$890 million appeal, 43 per cent funded. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A war and an earthquake, laid over one another. - Registry ID: `mmr-ocha-dashboard-2026` - Publisher: UN OCHA - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-03-09 - Registry title: Country dashboard and Humanitarian Update no. 51 - Editorial note: Two shocks laid over one another; a live funding figure that rolls. - Original: [Open source]() OCHA frames Myanmar as two shocks in one country: a war since the 2021 coup and the March 2025 earthquake, together displacing the highest number on record. It reports 3.6 million displaced — the highest figure on record, 1.7 million of them concentrated in the Northwest, Rakhine and Southeast — against 16.2 million in need, with the 2026 appeal about 43 per cent funded as of 30 June and a gap of US$502.8 million that keeps moving. Access restrictions across the conflict zones keep the true count uncertain. The 28 March 2025 quake left around two million people newly affected and nearly 70 health facilities damaged or destroyed, on top of the conflict caseload — and rights monitors reported the military obstructed relief to opposition areas and kept bombing. #### Takeaways - A live funding figure that rolls — re-fetch before publication with a fresh as-of date. - Displacement subsets are non-additive; the quake is a compounding shock, not the origin. - Access restrictions make every figure here a floor. #### Visual provenance - Caption: 3.6 million displaced by conflict and disaster together — the highest on record, 1.7 million of them in the Northwest, Rakhine and Southeast, most having fled more than once. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 3.6 million displaced, the highest on record. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Three ways to count the displaced. - Registry ID: `mmr-unhcr-2026` - Publisher: UNHCR - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-06-08 - Registry title: Myanmar Emergency / Operational Data Portal - Editorial note: Three displacement counts, most regional refugees carrying a statelessness older than this war. - Original: [Open source]() UNHCR's portal draws the displacement finer than a single number: internally displaced, regional refugees, and an older statelessness folded into the same map. It records 3,775,600 people internally displaced as of 8 June 2026, and separately about 1.62 million Myanmar refugees and asylum-seekers across the region as of 31 May. That regional figure carries a built-in caution: the overwhelming majority — more than 1.19 million in Bangladesh alone — are Rohingya whose statelessness predates this war, largely from the 2017 exodus. Only about 299,300 arrivals across the Asia-Pacific are cleanly attributable to flight since the February 2021 coup. UNHCR counts movement, never the dead, and stamps each figure with its own date, so the numbers cannot be collapsed into a single snapshot. Access restrictions make all of them floors. #### Takeaways - IDPs, refugees, statelessness and returnees are distinct — never headline the 1.62M as 'fled the civil war.' - About 299,300 is the figure cleanly attributable to post-coup flight; the rest is older Rohingya displacement. - Staggered dates, rolling — a movement ledger, never a death count. #### Visual provenance - Caption: Three counts that cannot be summed: 3,775,600 internally displaced; about 1.62 million refugees regionally — but only ~299,300 cleanly attributable to flight since the 2021 coup, the rest a Rohingya statelessness older than this war. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 3.78 million IDPs, 1.62 million regional refugees, ~299,300 since the coup. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Evidence, held for a courtroom that has not opened. - Registry ID: `mmr-iimm-2025` - Publisher: United Nations (IIMM) - Source type: primary\_document - Published: 2025-08-12 - Registry title: Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar — annual report - Editorial note: A custodian of proof, not a court; it counts evidence, never the dead. - Original: [Open source]() The IIMM describes itself not as a court but as a custodian of proof — a UN body mandated since 2018 to collect, preserve and analyse evidence of the gravest crimes in Myanmar since 2011. Its 2024–2025 report rests on more than 1,300 sources and almost 600 eyewitness testimonies, and says it has made progress identifying the perpetrators of crimes against people detained by the military. It is an archive built for prosecutions that have not yet happened, held for jurisdictions that may one day claim them. It convicts no one and counts evidence, not the dead. Its findings are attributed positions, not verdicts — and the military rejects the mechanism as interference. #### Takeaways - It preserves evidence; it does not convict — its numbers count sources, never fatalities. - Its findings are attributed positions, not verdicts. - Most post-coup conduct sits outside any court; the IIMM is where the record is kept meanwhile. #### Visual provenance - Caption: An archive built for trials that have not happened: more than 1,300 sources and almost 600 eyewitness testimonies, preserved by the UN mechanism for jurisdictions that may one day claim them. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: an evidence archive of more than 1,300 sources and almost 600 eyewitness testimonies. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The air war, traced through its fuel. - Registry ID: `mmr-amnesty-2026` - Publisher: Amnesty International - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-01-25 - Registry title: Country hub and coup-anniversary reporting - Editorial note: The air war traced through its fuel; detention and custody deaths, flagged as undercounts. - Original: [Open source]() Amnesty reads the fifth coup year as escalation, not stalemate, and follows the campaign through its supply chain. It reports at least 109,604 metric tonnes of aviation fuel imported in 2025, a 69 per cent jump and the highest since the coup, arriving on what it called ghost ships. It records more than 30,000 political prisoners and over 2,200 deaths in custody, both citing the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners and flagged as likely undercounts. It is an advocacy source arguing a case — read here as corroborating, not proof. The custody-death figure is a hedged high-end estimate, and its earlier food-insecurity figure has since been superseded by lower 2026 counts. #### Takeaways - An advocacy source — attribute; treat the supply-chain and custody figures as corroborating, not independent proof. - The fuel figure follows the air war through imports rather than counting strikes directly. - The custody-death and food figures are hedged and dated; re-check against fresher counts. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The air war traced through its fuel: 109,604 tonnes of aviation fuel imported in 2025, up 69 per cent — as airstrike events targeting civilians rose from 253 in 2023 to 776 in 2024. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 109,604 tonnes of aviation fuel imported in 2025, airstrikes on civilians 253 to 776. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The Rohingya, between two fires. - Registry ID: `mmr-hrw-2026` - Publisher: Human Rights Watch - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-01-28 - Registry title: Myanmar (Burma) country reporting - Editorial note: The Rohingya between two fires; the limits of what the courts can reach. - Original: [Open source]() One population sits at the sharp end of this war and of an older one, threatened now from more than one direction. Human Rights Watch records about 600,000 Rohingya still in Rakhine State under what it calls a system of apartheid and persecution, while nearly a million more live in camps in Bangladesh, some 730,000 of them from the 2017 military campaign. The danger now comes from more than one side: HRW documents the Arakan Army, itself fighting the junta, imposing forced labour, arbitrary detention and movement restrictions on Rohingya after taking Maungdaw in December 2024. HRW also stresses the limits of the law: the ICC and ICJ measures remain limited to atrocities prior to the coup, leaving most post-2021 conduct, for now, outside the courts. Its legal terms are its own characterisations, attributed. #### Takeaways - Legal terms — apartheid, persecution — are HRW's characterisations, attributed, not adopted as the file's verdict. - The Rohingya are caught between the military and the Arakan Army, with abuses documented on both sides. - Court measures reach only pre-coup atrocities; this is context carried with attribution, not a folded-in genocide dossier. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The Rohingya between two fires: about 600,000 remain in Rakhine under what HRW calls apartheid and persecution; nearly a million more live in Bangladesh camps, most from the 2017 campaign. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: about 600,000 Rohingya in Rakhine, nearly a million in Bangladesh camps. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Not two sides, but a country pulled apart. - Registry ID: `mmr-icg-framing` - Publisher: International Crisis Group - Source type: research - Published: 2026-01-01 - Registry title: Myanmar analysis hub - Editorial note: An interpretive lens on who is fighting whom — carried as framing, not primary evidence. - Original: [Open source]() Crisis Group reads Myanmar not as government-versus-rebels but as a country fragmented among a military, a parallel government and numerous ethnic armies. The value of the reading is the structure, not a body count: the State Administration Council military holds the state and the air force; the National Unity Government, formed by ousted lawmakers, wages what it calls a defensive war through its People's Defence Forces; and a mosaic of ethnic armed organisations, some older than the coup by decades, holds the edges and led Operation 1027 in October 2023. The source is carried here only as a lens on who is fighting whom, because it could not be fetched live for this edition; its substantive figures are held as unverified and sourced instead to the bodies that collect them. #### Takeaways - An interpretive lens, never primary evidence — every ICG number is held unverified here. - The three-bloc reading is why the war is hard to count and hard to end. - Source any specific figure to the bodies that collect it, not to the framing. #### Visual provenance - Caption: Not government-versus-rebels: a military clinging to the centre, the National Unity Government and its defence forces, and a mosaic of ethnic armed organisations holding the edges. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: a military at the centre, a parallel government, and ethnic armies at the edges. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Analysis shelf ### Statement to the Human Rights Council (five years after the coup) - Publisher: OHCHR - Type: report - Why it matters: The UN-verified civilian death floor, the airstrike toll, and the detention figures — each a corroborated minimum. - Position note: Independent UN human-rights office; verified minima, never totals. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The verified register, kept apart from the tally. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two death ledgers. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger - Publisher: ACLED - Type: dataset - Why it matters: The media-report fatality tally and the fragmentation count — a floor, method-labelled and never merged with the verified toll. - Position note: Conflict-data monitor; proprietary data, rebuilt natively with attribution. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: A media-report floor, not a verified toll. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 100,114 fatalities and 1,200 groups. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Myanmar (Burma) country reporting - Publisher: Human Rights Watch - Type: investigation - Why it matters: The Rohingya between two fires, custody deaths, and the limits of what the ICC and ICJ can reach. - Position note: Advocacy monitor; legal terms are HRW's characterisations, attributed. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Apartheid and persecution — HRW's terms, attributed. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Rohingya between two fires. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026 - Publisher: UN OCHA - Type: report - Why it matters: The need, the shrinking target and the appeal — the humanitarian floor sinking below the caseload. - Position note: Humanitarian planning source; a request, not a census. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: A contraction of money and access, not need. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the appeal shrinking. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Media shelf ### Myanmar civil war — territorial control map - Publisher: Wikimedia Commons - Type: media - Why it matters: A crowd-maintained OSINT map of a war too fragmented to read as two sides — orientation, not evidence. - Position note: CC BY-SA 4.0 asset, pinned to a dated revision; approximate, never proof of a specific event. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The centre held, the edges contested. - Alt text: Map of Myanmar showing approximate territorial control. - Credit: Yuet Man Lee - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Evidence preservation (IIMM) - Publisher: United Nations (IIMM) - Type: document - Why it matters: The UN archive of more than 1,300 sources and almost 600 testimonies — proof held for courts that have not opened. - Position note: Evidence custodian, not a court; counts sources, never the dead. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Proof preserved for a courtroom not yet open. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the IIMM evidence archive. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Open questions - Present the two death ledgers — OHCHR's 7,700+ verified and ACLED's 100,114 media-report — side by side with method labels, never as a single headline and never summed. - Refresh every rolling figure at publication day: OCHA live funding coverage, the UNHCR portal, ACLED's cumulative tally; re-confirm the access-blocked primary pages (OCHA, UNHCR, OHCHR, ICG) in a browser. - Keep the categories — verified civilian dead, media-report fatalities, IDPs, refugees, need, funding — visually and verbally separate; never imply a single 'cost of the war.' - Hold every belligerent statement as an own-position and every legal term as an attributed finding — no verdict, no false parity, and assess resistance and ethnic-army conduct actor by actor. - Keep the Rohingya panel proportionate and attributed — context carried with sourcing, not a genocide dossier folded into a war one. ## Source registry - `mmr-ohchr-hrc-2026` — [OHCHR — Statement to the Human Rights Council, five years after the coup](); human\_rights; 2026-02-01 - `mmr-acled-2026` — [ACLED — Conflict Index and post-coup fatality ledger](); research; 2026-07-01 - `mmr-ocha-hnrp-2026` — [UN OCHA — Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2026](); humanitarian; 2025-12-10 - `mmr-ocha-dashboard-2026` — [UN OCHA — Country dashboard and Humanitarian Update no. 51](); humanitarian; 2026-03-09 - `mmr-unhcr-2026` — [UNHCR — Myanmar Emergency / Operational Data Portal](); humanitarian; 2026-06-08 - `mmr-iimm-2025` — [United Nations (IIMM) — Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar — annual report](); primary\_document; 2025-08-12 - `mmr-amnesty-2026` — [Amnesty International — Country hub and coup-anniversary reporting](); human\_rights; 2026-01-25 - `mmr-hrw-2026` — [Human Rights Watch — Myanmar (Burma) country reporting](); human\_rights; 2026-01-28 - `mmr-icg-framing` — [International Crisis Group — Myanmar analysis hub](); research; 2026-01-01