According to researchers, there has been a devastating increase in attacks on schools in Myanmar’s civil war

BANGKOK – Intensifying fighting in Myanmar’s civil war has led to a sharp increase in vandalism attacks on schools, a group monitoring the armed conflict in the Southeast Asian country said in a report on Saturday.

Myanmar Witness said the attacks had further strained Myanmar’s already shattered school system, with millions of children denied education, forced to flee their homes, missing out on vaccinations and suffering from malnutrition.

The group, a project of the UK-based Center for Information Resilience, has identified a total of 174 attacks on schools and universities in Myanmar since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi three years ago. The figure was based on evidence on social media and news reports, it said.

Other groups estimate the number of attacks to be even higher. The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, a New York-based advocacy group, counted over 245 reports of attacks on schools and 190 reports of military use of educational facilities in 2022-23.

The military’s seizure of power in 2021 was accompanied by widespread nonviolent pro-democracy demonstrations, which were however crushed with deadly force. Many opponents of military rule subsequently took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict. It is estimated that the military government controls less than half of the country.

“Education was the foundation of Myanmar’s democratic movement, but today Myanmar’s youth are seeing their schools – and their life chances – reduced to rubble,” said Matt Lawrence, project director at Myanmar Witness. “If education is not protected across Myanmar, there is a risk that the next generation’s worldview will be shaped by factionalism and war, rather than hope and reason.”

According to the humanitarian organization Save the Children, Myanmar’s student enrollment has fallen by 80% since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 to 2022, a year after the army seized power. By mid-2022, about half of the country’s children, or 7.8 million, were not attending school, it said.

Myanmar Witness said it had documented reports of 64 deaths and 106 injuries in connection with the 176 attacks on schools, but most of these reports could not be verified.

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, which is leading the democratic struggle against military rule, estimated in January that more than 570 children under the age of 18 had been killed by security forces in various circumstances. According to the multinational Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict.

Myanmar Witness blames the destruction of the schools on air strikes by the Myanmar military. The air strikes have increased as pro-democracy forces and allied ethnic minority armed groups have gained success on the battlefield.

As a result of the resistance movement’s offensives, the military has had to “resort to more and more air strikes, often with less and less suitable flying equipment, as it loses effective access to the ground,” Lawrence told the Associated Press.

The military government has consistently denied targeting civilians or using disproportionate force.

According to the report, there were also attacks by the resistance forces on schools, but these were much less frequent and less destructive. Drones with small explosive charges were often used.

Other factors are also affecting teaching. Many young people, including older students, are becoming more involved in the resistance. Thousands of teachers have quit their jobs since the army took power and joined a civil disobedience movement aimed at undermining military control over state institutions. And the conflict’s shifting front lines are making it difficult for teachers to provide reliable instruction.

Some teachers have founded or joined schools outside of military control.

“We are seeing almost a dualistic system developing in Myanmar, where there are government-supported schools and those supported by other parties. And there are retaliations for participating in one system or the other,” says Lisa Chung Bender, executive director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack.

“It puts children and educators in an impossible position: They have to pass checkpoints and declare where they are going. And if it turns out they are going to an enemy school – whatever enemy that is – they can be harassed, arrested or physically punished,” she said.

The lack of adequate access to education is just one part of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. More than 3 million people have been displaced from their homes by fighting, most since the military took power in 2021, and the country is suffering a deepening economic crisis.

A report on global child food poverty by the United Nations Children’s Fund released in June said 35 percent of children in Myanmar live in food poverty, meaning they have access to only half or less of the eight food groups they need daily for healthy growth and development.

According to the UN Development Programme, more than half of Myanmar’s children now live in poverty because the country’s fledgling middle class has disappeared.