Community-based relief efforts in Kaylar (Kelar) village, Shan State, Myanmar. (Photo: Jochen in Myanmar)

As the people of Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand continue to suffer the effects of the earthquake that struck the region on March 28, a coalition of more than 200 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations is calling for the international community to make sure that aid is not provided in a way that benefits the country’s ruling military junta.

In a March 30 press release published by the advocacy organization Burma Campaign UK, the coalition references the junta’s “intensifying campaign of terror against the Myanmar people” and its history of “grotesque manipulation of human suffering for consolidation of political power and personal profit.” Arguing that external aid was “cynically weaponized” by the regime after Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the group calls on the world to channel aid “through local community groups and frontline responders in collaboration with the National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs), and civil society.”

Al Jazeera, citing figures from the regime-controlled television network MRTV, reported on April 2 that the death toll in Myanmar from the 7.7 magnitude quake had passed 3,000 with more than 4,500 people injured.

The impact of civil war and the dismantling of USAID

One key factor shaping the impact of the earthquake response in Myanmar is the ongoing fighting between the military government, which seized power in a coup in 2021, and various local and regional groups. The Sagaing region, reportedly the area worst affected by the quake, is a hotspot in the ongoing civil war. While the regime announced a temporary truce on April 2, ostensibly to facilitate aid delivery, this followed several days of airstrikes immediately after the earthquake.

Critics also note that the regime has a history of breaking truces and may be looking to leverage the disaster toward its goal of increasing its diplomatic legitimacy with international partners. In addition, the regime may be seeking to deflect attention away from its decision to fire warning shots at a Chinese aid convoy just a day before announcing the temporary truce.

A second complicating factor is the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID, the agency responsible for leading US relief efforts around the world. NPR reports that whereas the US sent a team of 225 USAID workers to Turkey in 2023 after a major earthquake in that country, the US team being sent to Myanmar only consists of three individuals. One former USAID official quoted in the report described the US response as “disastrous” and “inconceivably chaotic.”

Supporting mutual aid in Myanmar

One by-product of Myanmar’s long history of civil war is that ordinary people know how to coordinate action in chaotic environments. Given concerns about the junta’s tendency to control and manipulate outside aid, there is good reason to heed the call of civil society organizations to provide aid directly to those organizing at the community level.

To that end, working in consultation with local journalists and activists, Weave News has put together a list of several recommended ways to provide support that will directly assist those who need it most: