Five years into a devastating civil war, Myanmar’s healthcare system is teetering on the verge of total collapse. Since the military junta seized power in a 2021 coup, the nation’s medical infrastructure has been systematically targeted, leaving more than 16 million people in urgent need of life-saving assistance and protection, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Healthcare professionals, many of whom joined the resistance, have faced extreme persecution. Data from Insecurity Insight indicates that there have been at least 1,948 incidents involving violence against or obstruction of healthcare staff, resulting in 932 arrests and 175 deaths. The WHO verified 70 attacks on medical sites in 2025 alone, which caused 148 deaths and 186 injuries. These incidents are not collateral damage, according to a doctor from Global Health Partnerships, who noted that clinics in contested regions are repeatedly targeted from the air specifically because they sustain communities that resist military rule. The junta has denied these allegations, claiming that those killed at medical sites were not civilians but terrorists and their supporters.
Dr. Andrew Green, chair of the British Medical Association’s medical ethics committee, recently warned that violations of international humanitarian law have led to the near-total destruction of medical services nationwide. Compounding the violence is a severe shortage of essential supplies, including antibiotics, IV fluids, bandages, malaria tests, and maternal health resources. These shortages have caused routine health programs to stall and triggered a resurgence of malaria and outbreaks of preventable diseases linked to unsafe water.
For doctors like Elle—a pseudonym used for her protection—the reality is a grueling cycle of sacrifice. After fleeing to the jungle in 2021, Elle and her husband, also a doctor, have worked to provide aid to the resistance. Her personal journey has been marked by profound hardship, including the loss of her mother and making the dangerous journey by motorbike to a clinic for refugees to give birth. Eight days later, authorities arrested her husband, and she went through postnatal depression. Although her husband was eventually released, the couple struggles to earn enough to support their families while treating refugees and war victims.
The strain on the profession is immense. Even before the conflict, Myanmar suffered from a shortage of medical workers, with only one per 1,000 people. Today, many have been forced to flee the country or abandon their clinical practice. For those remaining, the emotional toll is heavy. “We did everything we could for our country,” Elle says. “But for ourselves and our families, we feel like we are failing.” As she treats children wounded in the fighting, the personal stakes become impossible to ignore: “Doctors see death, but when I see dying, and especially children, injured or dying, it hurts. Now that I’m a mother, it could be my son.” Despite their training, the impacts of the conflict are sometimes hard to bear.
Since the conflict began in 2021, more than 100,000 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project (ACLED). Following widely condemned elections that concluded in January, the UN reported that the military was responsible for at least 702 civilian deaths in a six-month window. While the junta has regained some strategic ground in 2025, the cost to the nation’s health and human security continues to mount.
Following a series of humiliating defeats in 2024, the military recaptured some ground this year. The gains amount to a small slice of overall territory but carry strategic value as they disrupted the resistance’s supply lines and operations.
Lacking phone reception, it was months before her husband learned his mother had died.
