The Myanmar junta claimed that it will provide assistance from the National Disaster Management Fund to people displaced by fighting (IDPs), according to junta-run newspapers.
According to those newspapers the plans to help IDPs were launched following a directive made by the coup leader, Min Aung Hlaing, at a 17 January 2025 junta cabinet meeting. They said that the junta would assist those temporarily displaced by terrorist attacks, using the junta’s term of terrorist to refer to opposition groups and resistance forces.
The newspapers also said that the required data gathering needed for aid distribution had already started in some states and regions.
An aid worker assisting displaced people in an undisclosed location in central Myanmar said that the junta's claims of providing aid were no more than rhetoric. He also warned that the data the junta wants to collect for aid distribution could also be used to create voter lists for the upcoming junta-planned elections.
He said to Than Lwin Times: “The junta’s plan to assist war-displaced people is nothing but a superficial pretence. In our Anyar region [Myanmar’s central lowland region], junta forces have been setting villages on fire and ransacking wherever they go. This supposed aid plan is likely tied to the upcoming elections, which the junta aims to control.
"The military regime did something similar after Cyclone Nargis in 2008, when it conducted enumerations of deaths and victims, only to manipulate the data for electoral purposes. Now, there's a strong possibility the junta will collect information on displaced people with the same intention, to use it in the election process. I have no faith in the junta's claims of helping displaced people. I dare say that their aid plan does not have good intentions. If the junta hadn’t been committing arson in the first place, there would be no need for such aid.”
He also pointed out that if the junta can collect accurate data on displaced people it could use that data to solicit aid from international donors which it could then use for its own purposes rather than for assisting the IDPs. He also warned that if the junta knows the location of IDPs it may use them as human shields or exploit them in other ways.
A woman assisting IDPs in central Myanmar pointed out that it will be impossible for the junta to collect accurate data on IDPs because IDPs will flee if junta authorities come to the areas where they are sheltering.
The junta has encouraged communities to help in the drawing up of IDP lists and for IDPs to fully cooperate with the junta. In certain regions and states, lists of IDPs sheltering in monasteries, relatives' homes and other types of temporary residence are being compiled.
According to a report by Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar) at the end of 2024 there were 6.6 million IDPs in Myanmar. Sagaing Region, with 2.8 million IDPs, is the region with the most IDPs. It is followed by Karen State with approximately 800,000 IDPs and Arakan (Rakhine) State with around 600,000 IDPs.
