Following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake centred near Mandalay, the second biggest city in Myanmar (previously known as Burma), the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, told the BBC:

“What we know from past humanitarian disasters, natural disasters, is that the junta does not reveal the truth. It also has a habit of blocking humanitarian aid from getting to where it is most needed.

“They weaponize this aid. They send it to those areas that they have control of and they deny it to areas that they do not.”

A civil war has been ongoing in Myanmar since the military coup by the army in 2021. In November 2024 the BBC assessed the power balance in more than 14,000 village groups, and found the military junta only has full control of 21% of Myanmar’s territory. The investigation revealed that ethnic armies and a patchwork of resistance groups now control 42% of the country’s land mass. Much of the remaining area is contested.

The military do not control Mandalay. Since the earthquake they have continued to bomb the area near the city. BBC Burmese confirmed that seven people were killed in an air strike in Naungcho in northern Shan state. This strike took place around 15:30 local time, less than three hours after the quake struck.

“So you have areas in which the most acute needs exist and you have literally aid trying to get in, trucks blocking the way, people being arrested and that has been the pattern of their response to natural disasters in the past,” Tom Andrews said.

“I’m afraid I’m fully expecting that that will be the case with this disaster.”

The military’s aerial warfare is being sustained by continued support from Russia and China. Despite UN calls for an arms embargo in response to the coup, both China and Russia have sold the junta sophisticated attack jets and provided training on how to use it.

Russia and China have also now sent aid and rescue teams into Myanmar. But UK-based Burmese rights activist Julie Khine said: “It’s hard to trust the sympathy now, when they’re also the same countries supplying the military junta with deadly weapons used to kill our innocent civilians.”