Over the past 75 years, millions of lives have been destroyed, derailed, or otherwise shattered by the war in Burma, as the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups continue their fight against successive military juntas.
While the junta enjoys military and financial support from Russia and China, the pro-democracy forces receive little more than statements of condemnation from the UN and the international community—without any material aid, political backing, or military intervention.
Vittorio, a Catholic Karenni Free Burma Ranger (FBR) and a member of the pro-democracy resistance, was killed in action while defending his ethnic and religious community from the military junta’s forces. Looking at his photos, it’s hard to believe he’s gone. He doesn’t look like someone who should be dead—he should have had his whole life ahead of him. If he had been born in America, he would have been preparing for prom, learning to drive, working a part-time job—enjoying one last summer with his friends before college. Instead, he was born into a war—the same war his parents, and possibly even his grandparents, were born into. Burma’s war is the longest-running conflict in the world, and Vittorio never knew anything else. He grew up in hardship and died serving others.
As I get older, the ethnic resistance fighters seem younger and younger. Recently, a 16-year-old soldier stepped on a landmine while the Rangers were inspecting a church that had been bombed by the junta. He survived, but he lost his foot. If he lives to 35, he will have spent more years without his foot than with it—a stark reminder of how war steals not just lives, but entire futures.
In Chiangmai, Thailand, I met a 19-year-old Catholic Karenni ex-soldier who is now trying to earn an American GED and get an education, but the odds are stacked against him. He grew up in the countryside with a poor education to begin with, then came COVID lockdowns, school closures, and finally the coup. He was barely 14 when he last sat in a classroom, and the years since have been filled with war. When he arrived in Chiang Mai, he had no formal schooling for half a decade.
Even if he manages to pass his GED, his future remains uncertain. His family is displaced, struggling daily just to find food. There is no one to pay for his college tuition. At best, he will become an undocumented laborer in Thailand. At worst, he will be deported back into a warzone.
This is the grim reality of Burma’s war—a war that has raged since 1948, robbing entire generations of their future. It’s not just the dead who are casualties; the living have also lost everything—their education, their careers, their chance to travel, to raise families, to build lives that the rest of the world takes for granted.
Across the country, 3.5 million people are internally displaced, while another 3 to 4 million are hiding in Thailand. Add to that a million in Bangladesh, thousands more in India, and those resettled in third countries, and you realize that nearly 18% of Burma’s population no longer lives where they are supposed to. They are no longer in their homes, surrounded by their families, their farms, their language, their culture.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Karenni State, Burma’s only Catholic-majority region, where 80% of the population has been displaced. Nearly everyone has witnessed their homes and villages being destroyed. Airstrikes are a daily reality. Most have seen people killed firsthand. Even young children tell stories of watching their neighbors blown apart.
Yesterday, a Catholic nun wept as she told me about a boy who had been mangled by a bomb dropped from a Chinese aircraft.
In violation of international sanctions, Russia and China continue to supply the junta with weapons and fuel, enabling its brutal campaign against the people of Burma. Despite this, resistance forces have captured roughly 80% of the country’s territory. However, without international support, they have no way of seizing the remaining government strongholds, which are fortified with landmines, drones, and total air superiority.
Meanwhile, the junta regularly launches airstrikes on civilian villages, churches, temples, IDP camps, hospitals, and schools, killing indiscriminately. The mass killing of civilians will only end when the junta has been defanged and its support from Russia and China is halted. And until the junta falls, the civilian government cannot begin rebuilding—roads will remain impassable, schools will remain closed, and an entire generation will continue to grow up in war instead of peace.
In January 2025, David Eubank, head of Free Burma Rangers (FBR), and Burma expert Ashley South issued an open letter calling for international intervention. They wrote:
“The United States should support freedom and democracy in Burma—because this is the right thing to do for the people of Burma, the region, and the world. Supporting democracy in Burma can also help counter Chinese state authoritarian influence and oppression.”
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