On Friday, in Mandalay and Sagaing regions of Myanmar, the people there were hit with a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.7. The official death toll passed 1,600 on Sunday but is expected to be much higher. Not long after the earthquake, the Myanmar Air Force launched airstrikes in northern Shan State. These airstrikes are in addition to artillery and ground attacks in different areas of Myanmar that continue in spite of the earthquake. In Myanmar we have two kinds of devastation, one natural and one unnatural and completely man-made. Every country faces challenges and natural disasters, but on top of this, the dictators of Myanmar have added their own misery to the people.
We are in Myanmar right now on a humanitarian relief mission and felt the earthquake strongly in southern Shan State. We were in the jungle where almost all the people are hiding as they’ve been hunted and chased by the military for over three years now. Even though the ground shook and the trees swayed, no one was injured. There were no buildings to collapse on them because they’ve been chased from their homes by the military. The nearby town of Mobye has already been devastated by the Myanmar military and reduced to rubble, so there was nothing there left to fall.
And just across the border in Karenni State it is the same. Over 350,000 people, almost the entire population of Karenni State, have been displaced by Myanmar military attacks. There are constant attacks on the ground and from the air as the Myanmar military uses ground forces, artillery, jet fighters, Y-12 bombers and drones to kill their own people.
The night before the earthquake we had a funeral for a young man killed by the Myanmar army who was about to join our group. And now we have this earthquake. Because the damage is in the dictators’ controlled areas, we don’t have direct access to quake victims. The Myanmar military blocks the way and has provided very little assistance.
In spite of this, local community-based organizations and groups of people are doing their best to help. They were immediately helping to dig victims out of the rubble and assisting as much as they could. They need more help in the form of heavy equipment and specialized rescue and medical teams to extract the living, and bring out the dead.
Also needed is extensive medical support for the injured as well as humanitarian assistance of food and shelter and comfort for all the people who now have no home. This assistance needs to go directly to the affected communities and not through the government. There are local organizations and international organizations that can do this very well and are ready and willing to help.
We pray that they will be allowed by the Myanmar government to do that. We are grateful for the local as well as international groups that want to help. We appeal to the Myanmar military to stop their attacks and allow this assistance to go directly to the people, to stop these man-made disasters on top of natural disasters. We pray that the hearts of the Myanmar military will change and that there can be a representative democracy with justice and freedom and reconciliation for all including the military. God bless you.
David Eubank is the founder of the Free Burma Rangers.
