Myanmar Crisis

Myanmar Map
Source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

The country

Myanmar, formerly Burma, is a Southeast Asian nation that borders India, Bangladesh, China, Laos, and Thailand. The country gained its independence from the United Kingdom on January 4, 1948. Its capital is Naypyitaw. Myanmar covers a land area of 676,578 square kilometers. As of 2025, the country has an estimated population of around 57 million people. Over half of Myanmar's population consists of diverse ethnic groups.

The humanitarian situation

Myanmar faces multiple, overlapping humanitarian needs caused by persecution, protracted armed conflict, intercommunal violence and natural disasters. Humanitarian needs in Myanmar have continued to mount due to ongoing armed violence and political unrest since the military coup in February 2021. The humanitarian situation remains dire, with more than one-third of the country's 57 million people estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2025.

Myanmar remains one of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises, with 19.9 million people - nearly a third of them children - in need of assistance. Despite the scale of the need, the humanitarian situation has received little of the international political and media attention it deserves.

Conflict has caused unprecedented displacement. By the end of 2024, conflict has forced more than 3.5 million people to flee their homes - an all-time high and a staggering increase of nearly 1.5 million IDPs since 2023. Of these, about 300,000 people are internally displaced due to conflict prior to February 2021, mainly in Rakhine, Kachin, Chin, and Shan states.

More than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar - mostly from the Rohingya ethnic group - have fled to neighboring countries. Approximately 149,000 people have fled the country since the military takeover in February 2021. Nearly half of the refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are children. 

For decades, the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority, have faced institutionalized discrimination in Myanmar, such as exclusion from citizenship. Since August 2017, ongoing conflict and violence in northern Rakhine state forced over 700,000 people, mostly Rohingya, to flee Myanmar to Bangladesh. Most of the Rohingya refugees are living currently at the Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar region. 

Rising despair in Bangladesh’s refugee camps and ongoing violence in Myanmar are driving a dramatic increase in Rohingya risking perilous journeys across the Andaman Sea. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has issued several public warnings about the sharp increase in the number of people, mainly Rohingya, fleeing both Bangladesh and Myanmar by boat.

In 2023, at least 4,490 Rohingya made the risky boat journey - an increase from 2022, when a total of 3,705 Rohingya risked their lives. The majority of those attempting the journey across the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal were women and children. Some 569 Rohingya were reported to have perished or gone missing in 2023 in South-East Asian waters. 

In 2024, more than 7,800 Rohingya attempted to flee the country by boat - an 80 percent increase from 2023. More than 650 died or were reported missing en route, making it one of the most perilous journeys in the world.
UNHCR reports that more children embarked on the vessels in 2024, accounting for 44 percent of the total passengers, up from 37 percent in 2023. The proportion of women also increased to nearly a third.

Myanmar is also one of the world's three most vulnerable countries to extreme weather, facing severe climate shocks such as cyclones, floods, and earthquakes. On May 14, 2023, Tropical Cyclone Mocha - one of the strongest storms in decades - hit western and northern Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh.

The cyclone caused widespread damage, affecting more than 10 million people in both countries and exacerbating the already severe humanitarian situation. On May 23, 2023,  the United Nations and humanitarian partners launched a $333 million flash appeal for donor support to reach the 1.6 million people affected by Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar's Rakhine, Chin, Sagaing, Magway and Kachin states.

A year after Cyclone Mocha struck, widespread flooding in July and September 2024 - caused by the remnants of Typhoon Yagi and monsoon rains - affected more than 1 million people nationwide, worsening conditions for a population already at risk. The floods caused significant loss of life, with more than 360 deaths reported in several regions and many more injured. Damage was particularly severe in the northwest, southeast and Rakhine state.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ongoing fighting across Myanmar continues to endanger the lives, safety and health of civilians. Heavy armed clashes, including aerial bombardment, artillery fire and ambushes, are reported in two-thirds of the country.

In 2024, the people of Myanmar faced a deepening humanitarian crisis, characterized by escalating needs amid unabated conflict, recurrent monsoon flooding and record displacement, and a response that is critically under-resourced.

The United Nations estimates that 19.9 million people - including 7.1 million vulnerable women - will need humanitarian assistance and protection in Myanmar in 2025, an increase of more than 1 million from 2024. Among the population that will require humanitarian assistance are approximately 6.4 million children.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 15.2 million people in the country - nearly 25 percent of the population - are food insecure.  At the same time, Myanmar's health system is in disarray and basic medicines are in short supply. Estimates suggested that 12 million people in Myanmar were in need of  emergency health assistance in 2024 alone.

In mid-December, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners launched the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan for Myanmar, seeking $1.1 billion to reach 5.5 million people with life-saving assistance over the course of the year.

Authority-imposed access restrictions and funding constraints severely hamper the ability of aid agencies to respond to humanitarian needs in Myanmar.

In 2023, humanitarian organizations reached only 3.2 million people with humanitarian assistance due to underfunding and access constraints. The lack of funding meant that more than 1.1 million people were left without priority life-saving assistance, nearly three-quarters of all planned shelter repairs and construction were not possible, and nearly 672,000 people did not have access to safe drinking water.

Despite ongoing access constraints and a humanitarian response that remains critically under-resourced, aid agencies reached an estimated 3.9 million people in 2024. More than three and a half years after the military took power, the crisis in Myanmar risks becoming a forgotten emergency. The situation requires immediate and sustained international attention to raise the resources needed to alleviate suffering and save lives.

A report by the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) - released in July 2023 - found that the humanitarian and human rights situation was exacerbated by the military's strategy to prevent life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching those who desperately need it, including in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Mocha in May 2023. OHCHR said that even when humanitarian workers were granted access, their ability to deliver aid was strictly limited and controlled.

Relief efforts in Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh (Rohingya refugee crisis) remain dangerously and chronically underfunded. The World Food Programme was forced to cut food aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh twice in 2023 due to funding shortages. In May, WFP cut food vouchers in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, to just US$8, less than 9 cents per meal. In March, WFP reduced its life-saving food vouchers from $12 to $10 per person per month. 

Since January 2024, WFP had increased monthly food vouchers back to $10 per person. In June 2024, WFP partially increased food rations for all Rohingya living in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, raising the entitlement to USD 11 per person per month. The UN agency has restored the full ration target of $12.50 in August 2024.

The 2024 Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) targeted 5.3 million of the most vulnerable people this year, requiring $994 million. By the end of the year, it was only 36 percent funded, one of the worst-resourced responses in the world, drastically limiting the ability of aid agencies to provide assistance to people prioritized for urgent assistance.

The 2024 Rohingya Joint Response Plan (JRP) requested US$852.4 million to assist 1.3 million people. Continued funding shortfalls have undermined relief efforts. The Rohingya Joint Response Plan was only 57 percent funded at the end of the year.

The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Myanmar called for US$887 million to provide life-saving assistance to millions of people. As of December, the HRP was only 33 percent funded. The 2023 Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Joint Response Plan required $876 million. As of December, the response plan was only 49 percent funded.

The United Nations requested $826 million in funding for the Myanmar crisis in 2022. As of December 2022, only $291 million had been received from donors (35 percent coverage). The Rohingya emergency in Bangladesh sought $881 million. As of December 2022, international donors had only provided $434 million (49 percent coverage). 

Myanmar LocationThe security situation

In August 2017, the Myanmar government launched a military campaign that forced 740,000 of Rohingya to flee their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The United States has declared the Myanmar government has committed genocide against the Rohingya. An estimated 600,000 Rohingya people, living in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, are unable to move freely and are subject to government persecution and violence.

On November 27, 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar's acting president, General Min Aung Hlaing, for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in 2017.

The Prosecutor's Office alleges that the crimes against humanity were committed between August 25, 2017, and December 31, 2017, by the MAF, also known as the Tatmadaw, “supported by the national police, the border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians”.

On February 1, 2021, the military staged a coup d'Ă©tat and arrested State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, as well as other leaders of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD). More than 6,000 people were killed in protests and unrest after the coup at the hands of the military, and over 27,000 were arrested.  

In 2022, intense armed clashes in several states, exacerbated by tight security and restrictions on the movement of people and goods, threatend the lives and safety of Myanmar people. Frequent, indiscriminate attacks, including airstrikes and artillery shelling in civilian areas, claimed victims and spread fear. Displacement also increased despite some reported returnees. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), Myanmar in 2022 was by far the worst country in terms of state-sponsored political violence against civilians.

In December 2022, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a landmark resolution on Myanmar (Resolution 2669), demanding the military government immediately end violence in the Southeast Asian nation and release all arbitrarily detained prisoners. In reiterating the necessity for full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access, the UNSC underlined the need for scaled-up humanitarian assistance to all people in need in Myanmar and to ensure the full protection, safety and security of humanitarian and medical personnel.

In 2023, armed conflict in multiple states across Myanmar claimed lives, triggered displacement and affected civilians. In 2023, more than 1 million people were internally displaced and living in precarious conditions in camps and informal sites, often in jungles and forests. Some 78,000 civilian structures, including homes, clinics, schools and places of worship, had been reportedly burned or destroyed since the military seized power. Some 255 of the country’s 330 townships had been impacted by armed clashes. Martial law was declared in 47 townships across multiple states and regions.

A report to the UN Human Rights Council, released in August 2023, found strong evidence that the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and its affiliate militias are committing increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes. These war crimes include indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilians from aerial bombing, the mass executions of civilians and detained combatants, and the large-scale and intentional burning of civilian homes and buildings, resulting in the destruction of entire villages in some cases.

In 2023, there was a staggering 270 percent increase in casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war compared to 2022, with more than a thousand casualties reported nationwide.

Since the end of October 2023, fighting between ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and the MAF has escalated. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced due to the clashes and aerial bombardments. In November 2023, the fierce fighting between the EAOs and the MAF spread to other regions, including densely populated urban centers. 

The fierce clashes erupted after a sudden coordinated attack by a trio of ethnic minority-led rebel groups along the border between China and Myanmar in northern Shan State. The offensive, dubbed "Operation 1027" due to the date it began, was launched in northern Shan State on October 27, 2023 by the "Three Brotherhood Alliance" - consisting of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).

According to the United Nations, this escalation is the largest and most geographically widespread since the military took power in 2021, with the north and south of Shan, Sagaing, Kayah, Rakhine, Chin, Magway, Kayah, eastern Bago and Kayin particularly affected. Since the operation started, armed conflict has been spreading in many parts of the country especially in Rakhine state, the northwest, Kachin and the southeast. 

As of January 2025, 12 out of 15 regions were impacted by armed conflict and fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and non-state armed groups, incuding the EAOs as well as People's Defence Forces (PDFs.) The ongoing escalation of conflict in Myanmar is severely affecting people in almost every corner of the country, with alarming spillover effects into neighboring countries. The UN warns that the humanitarian impact is significant and deeply concerning.

People across Myanmar live in daily fear for their lives, especially since the implementation of the National Conscription Law. In February 2024, Myanmar's military authorities announced plans to enforce a conscription law, with 5,000 people to be conscripted into the Myanmar Armed Forces every month from mid-April.

Since the announcement, arbitrary arrests and forced recruitment have continued to affect civilians. Members of the Rohingya community have been particularly hard hit. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in April that the armed forces have abducted and forcibly recruited more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslim men and boys from across Rakhine State since February 2024.

In 2024, Myanmar has seen armed groups unite and expand rapidly across the country. As conflict is ongoing in large parts of the country, people are forced to flee their homes in record numbers. According to ACLED, Myanmar was the second most conflict-ridden country in the world in 2024. It also ranked as the third deadliest and fourth most dangerous country for civilians, with 43 percent of the population exposed to conflict.

Civilians are bearing the brunt of the ongoing fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces and non-state armed groups, with deadly aerial bombardments and heavy shelling, including in residential areas. The humanitarian situation in Rakhine State is particularly alarming as fighting intensifies and intercommunal tensions simmer, while humanitarian organizations are denied permission to operate and movement throughout the country is severely restricted and unsafe.

In Rakhine, Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority is facing another wave of deadly violence, seven years after a military-led campaign in 2017 forced hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh. This time, however, the perpetrators are said to be the Arakan Army (AA), one of several ethnic armed groups fighting the country's ruling junta as well as Myanmar's security forces.

In May 2024, disturbing reports began to emerge of new atrocities being committed against members of the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State. Many thousands of Rohingya have been driven from their homes as intense fighting between junta forces and the Arakan Army has engulfed Rakhine. Most are without adequate food, shelter or medicine. Tens of thousands have reportedly crossed or are waiting to cross the border into Bangladesh in recent months.

The conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Arakan Army has been ongoing since November 2023 and now affects 16 out of 17 townships in Rakhine State. An estimated 500,000 people are now displaced in Rakhine, including 290,000 who have been forced to flee their homes since November 2023.

In December 2024, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released its annual Emergency Watchlist, highlighting the 20 countries most likely to face escalating humanitarian needs in the coming year. Myanmar ranked third on the dire list of countries of particular concern.

Donations

Your donations for the Myanmar emergency and the Rohingya emergency can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.

To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.

Further information

Last updated: 10/01/2025

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