More than 100,000 killed in five years makes Myanmar’s war the most violent after Palestine
The figures released today by ACLED confirm the military junta's failure to restore stability after the 2021 coup. While Beijing wants to restart construction on the Myitsone Dam, the regime continues to reject ASEAN’s request for a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Yangon (AsiaNews) – More than five years after the February 2021 military coup, the death toll from Myanmar’s civil war has topped 100,000, this according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), one of the leading international organisations monitoring global wars.
As of today, at least 100,114 people have died since Myanmar’s military seized power under General Min Aung Hlaing, making the Southeast Asian country the second most violent place in the world after the Palestinian Territories.
The numbers belie the military's pledge to restore stability after overthrowing the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and holding sham elections earlier this year.
According to the United Nations, more than 3.7 million people are now displaced, while more than one in five residents suffers from severe food insecurity.
The junta's planes continue to target villages, schools, and places of worship, especially in Sagaing, Magway, Chin, Kachin, and Rakhine, regions where the army is trying to retake territories held by rebel forces.
ACLED has registered more than 1,200 distinct armed groups in the civil war, calling it “the most fragmented conflict in the world”.
In addition to long-established ethnic armed militias, the People's Defence Forces (PDF) were set up after the coup, with hundreds of battalions loyal to Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) in exile.
In recent months, however, the military situation appears to have shifted once more in favour of the junta, thanks in part to increased political support from China and ceasefire agreements promoted by Beijing with some ethnic militias.
Chinese influence also continues to be felt in the economic sphere, Beijing’s only real interest in Myanmar.
According to government officials cited by Reuters, the military regime intends to restart the construction of the controversial Myitsone Dam in Kachin State within a few years, a project worth at least US$ 3.6 billion financed by China and suspended in 2011 following widespread popular protests.
The dam would be built at the confluence of the Mali and N'Mai rivers (Myitsone, မြစ်ဆုံ, means "where two rivers meet” or “confluence" in Burmese), where they become the Irrawaddy, Myanmar's main river.
With a capacity of six gigawatts, it would become one of the largest hydroelectric plants in Southeast Asia. The project, however, also envisions exporting about 90 per cent of the energy produced to China.
Opponents of the project warn of the risk of submerging an area almost the size of Singapore. Places considered sacred by the Kachin people are at risk of being submerged, and thousands of people are at risk of being displaced, a practice China has already used in Tibet.
The issue was addressed during Min Aung Hlaing's recent visit to China.
Myanmar authorities maintain that Chinese technologies will reduce environmental and seismic risks. These claims are hard to believe after the devastating earthquake that struck the country in March 2025.
Nearly 50 local organisations have already called for the project to be scrapped altogether, arguing that it will not benefit the local population but only further damage the environment.
Meanwhile, Myanmar yesterday rejected the request by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to have its special envoy meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic leader deposed in 2021 and still held in solitary confinement, who recently turned 81.
Although the junta claimed a couple of months ago that it had placed her under house arrest, her son, Kim Aris, has repeatedly said that he had received any credible evidence to confirm this. “The only news that we hear about her health is that it's getting worse,” he said from London.
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