Myanmar's Civil War Death Toll Crosses 100,000, Five Years After Military Coup

Five years ago, Myanmar's military overthrew the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and arrested her, ending a decade-long period of democratic rule. The takeover sparked huge street protests, which security forces crushed with force. Many young activists then left the cities and picked up arms, joining forces with long-standing ethnic minority armies that had already been fighting the central government for decades.

That uprising has since spiralled into a full-blown civil war. A conflict monitoring group now estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed across all sides since the coup. Because there is no official death count and estimates vary, this figure comes from tracking media reports of violence rather than government records, but analysts describe the war as the deadliest active conflict in Asia today.

The human toll is visible in ordinary lives upended. Families have lost husbands to airstrikes and sons who ran away to join rebel fighters. Funerals are sometimes cut short by shelling, and survivors describe a mix of grief, anger, and helplessness at not knowing whom to hold responsible.

The military ruled the country directly for five years under its commander before stepping back into a civilian presidency this year, following elections that were held only in areas under military control and boycotted or blocked by rebel groups. Independent observers called the vote a stage-managed attempt to give the military ruler a civilian image, and armed opposition groups rejected his offer of peace talks as insincere.

The fighting has spread across nearly the entire country. Cities like Yangon see occasional targeted killings, while other regions face constant combat or daily air raids using jets supplied by Russia and China. Researchers have identified over a thousand separate armed factions involved, calling it the most fragmented conflict anywhere in the world.

Momentum has shifted more than once. A coordinated rebel offensive in late 2023 pushed deep into military-held territory, at one point threatening the historic city of Mandalay. But the military has since regained ground, helped by China's backing and truce deals Beijing brokered with two powerful ethnic armies.

To replenish its forces, the military began enforcing a conscription law in 2024, compelling tens of thousands of citizens into service. Deserters describe conscripts being treated as expendable, moved from one dangerous posting to another with little chance of survival.

The war's damage extends beyond the battlefield. Nearly 3.7 million people are internally displaced within Myanmar, and food shortages are severe. Refugees have flooded into neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh, while lawless border regions have become hubs for drug production and online scam operations that fund armed groups on multiple sides.