A sobering overview by Shoona Loong at IISS (the link also includes valuable maps, part of IISS’s excellent mapping of the conflict):
“In the post-coup context, the SAC’s counter-insurgency campaigns against People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) have differed from its campaigns against ethnic armed organisations (EAOs). In the central Dry Zone, a predominantly Bamar-Buddhist area where PDFs largely fend for themselves in battle, SAC foot soldiers have intensively targeted the civilian population through a mass campaign of arson. In the borderlands where more powerful EAOs operate, the SAC’s use of arson is more limited. Instead, communities in EAO areas face other forms of collective punishment, such as blockades and indiscriminate shelling. . . .
The burning of homes and civilian infrastructure has contributed to soaring rates of internal displacement in areas far from Myanmar’s external borders. These arson campaigns are concentrated in the Dry Zone, particularly Sagaing region. In the first two years after the coup, Data for Myanmar reported that nearly 80% of the 55,000 homes that had burned down were in Sagaing. The UNOCHA reported no displacement in Sagaing before the coup; now, estimates of the number of internally displaced people there range from one million to over two million, more than in any other state or region. . . .
the humanitarian crisis in the Dry Zone can be understood not as an after-effect of the conflict but as part of the regime’s strategy of draining PDFs of civilian support by breaking their will to resist. Although over the years the military has wielded this strategy — inaugurated six decades ago as the ‘four cuts’ counterinsurgency doctrine — against legion enemies, it has found its clearest and most brutal expression in the Dry Zone since the coup. . . .
The Institute of Strategy and Policy — Myanmar (ISP) reported in late 2023 that more than one million refugees had fled from Myanmar since the coup. Adding to this the number of people who have left Myanmar because of the political and economic instability caused by years of fighting, the total could be several times higher. . . .
The coup has left nearly one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, most of whom fled before 2021, with no good options. On one hand, the conflict in Myanmar has eliminated the possibility of return and citizenship for Rohingya in the short term, especially since the military that expelled Rohingya from Rakhine seven years ago is now in power. On the other hand, the scale of displacement across this border, and Dhaka’s unwillingness to integrate refugees into the local population, has resulted in Rohingya refugees facing intense overcrowding and spiralling violence in the camps.”
Paul Staniland 