Access to Humanitarian Aid for Internally Displaced Persons in Karen State, Myanmar after 2021 Military Coup
Main Article Content
Abstract
This research examines the structural changes in humanitarian aid access for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Karen State following Myanmar's 2021 military coup. Employing a qualitative research approach through 11 semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, this study identifies a transition from state-controlled humanitarian mechanisms to a fragmented yet localized survival system in Karen State's humanitarian aid landscape. Findings reveal that displacement surged 38-fold to over 266,500 IDPs in Karen State by early 2026, with aid delivery severely disrupted by the Myanmar military's evolving counterinsurgency strategies. This study conceptualizes a 'Fifth Cut', characterized by digital authoritarianism including the surveillance of mobile banking platforms such as KPay and Wave Money to monitor and disrupt humanitarian financial flows. The study further identifies a 'disaster-conflict nexus' in accessible areas of Karen State, where the 2025 earthquakes and flooding compounded existing conflict-driven barriers by destroying supply routes and triggering secondary health crises. Despite these challenges, local aid organizations remain the primary lifelines for IDPs in reachable areas of Karen State, operating under the dual pressure of international donor bureaucracy and the military's restrictive administrative and legal measures. The study concludes by advocating for flexible, cross-border humanitarian practices capable of circumventing state-imposed access restrictions to reach Karen IDPs directly. Ultimately, this study serves as a critical reference point for Southeast Asia, demonstrating how the convergence of armed conflict, climate change, and digital authoritarianism underscores the urgent need to rethink international humanitarian policy frameworks, particularly regarding the localization of aid delivery.
Highlights
● The study introduces an original conceptual framework that is a new Fifth Cut, digital authoritarianism and financial surveillance, adding it to the state’s traditional Four Cuts strategy to monitor, disrupt and surveil humanitarian aid distribution and financial transactions.
● Findings validate the theorization of the disaster-conflict nexus, explaining how natural disasters (such as the 2025 earthquakes and flooding) multiply existing conflict barriers by destroying alternative supply routes and causing secondary health crises like cholera.
● The research reveals a critical, forced structural shift in the humanitarian landscape away from state-mediated mechanisms toward a highly localized survival system managed directly by community-based organizations and the Karen National Union (KNU).
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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