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Headlines:
The General's Pardon, the General's Prison
One in Seven Never Arrives
Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack
Telenor's Paper Trail
A Pack Costs More Than a Day's Wage
Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders
The General's Pardon, the General's Prison
Win Myint walked out of Taungoo Prison on April 17 after five years, two months, and sixteen days, freed by the same man who arrested him. That more or less summarizes the week. Min Aung Hlaing, one week into his role as "civilian president," gave amnesty to 4,514 prisoners to celebrate the Thingyan new year, commuted all death sentences, and shaved a sixth off of Aung San Suu Kyi's 27-year sentence, leaving the 80-year-old with only 22 and a half years still to serve. Win Myint is now at his daughter's house in Naypyidaw under what sources say is “strict surveillance.” Of the 4,514 released, the Political Prisoners Network Myanmar confirmed that 292 were political prisoners, and more than 22,000 are still detained. Suu Kyi's son Kim Aris hasn't heard from his mother in more than two years and continues to ask for proof she's alive.
Read more: CNA (analyst skepticism), DVB (son's demands), DVB (surveillance details), DVB (concurrent casualties), New York Times (re-arrest conditions)
One in Seven Never Arrives
A fishing trawler carrying roughly 250 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants sank in the Andaman Sea on April 9. The boat was headed to Malaysia from the Bangladeshi port of Teknaf, and the disaster left only nine survivors. The wreck is the latest story after what UNHCR said was the deadliest year on record for the Bay of Bengal crossing. 2025 saw nearly 900 dead or missing, meaning one in seven of the 6,500 who tried to make the journey never arrived. The camps in Cox's Bazar, home to around half a million children, have seen food rations cut and education spending gutted, even as fighting in Rakhine keeps pushing new arrivals across the border. More than 2,800 have attempted the crossing through April 13 of this year.
Read more: AsiaNews (Rakhine conditions), ReliefWeb (IOM rescue appeal), ReliefWeb (Save the Children), DVB (Penang interception)
Planting Season Meets an Empty Fertilizer Sack
Beijing put a lid on fertilizer exports in late March to protect its domestic supply, but this is a huge problem for Myanmar because planting season is getting near and a 50-percent cut in fertilizer use could reduce rice yields by up to 15 percent, according to a WFP warning. China normally accounts for about half of Myanmar's 1.1 million-ton yearly fertilizer imports. Urea bags that traded hands for 90,000 kyat before the shortage now need 150,000 on the open market. The regime has made some controlled-price stock available for 105,000 kyat to rice farmers in Naypyidaw's Lewe Township. "Ten bags of rice do not even cover the cost of one bag of fertilizer," one farmer said.
Read more: The Irrawaddy
Telenor's Paper Trail
A class-action lawsuit filed in Norway on April 8 names 1,253 customers who say that Telenor forked over personal data, including addresses and last-known locations, to the junta after the 2021 coup. The company's own transparency reports show it complied with 96 percent of the 153 data requests it was given. One request, made in September 2021, targeted activist Aung Thu while he was already in prison. He was re-arrested under counter-terrorism laws at the prison gates on his release the following month. Telenor, majority-owned by the Norwegian government, entered the market in Myanmar in 2013 with a promise to connect a country just opening up. It then walked away in 2022 with 18 million customers on its books. The plaintiffs, represented by a Swedish rights organization, want a minimum of €11 million in damages.
Read more: The Guardian
A Pad For More Than a Day's Wage
The junta is widening its ban on sanitary pad distribution in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions with a claim that the products are being diverted to treat wounded resistance fighters and protect their feet (!). Medical workers say that’s nonsense. A pad can’t stay in place, can’t absorb enough blood, and can’t keep a gunshot wound clean. What it will do is push hidden-market prices from 3,000 kyat a pack to 9,000, (compare against a 7,800 kyat daily minimum wage). Aid groups have turned to reusable pads, but women without clean water to wash themselves then are at risk of infection, irritation and UTIs. The Sisters2Sisters collective says the policy is deliberately brutal and gender-based violence.
Read more: News18
Airstrikes Don't Respect Borders
Myanmar Air Force Yak-130 and MiG-29 jets dropped nine bombs on a Karen National Union hospital in Bue So township, Kayin State, on April 20. At least one landed on Thai territory near Mae Wan on the Salween River. The target was about half a kilometer from the border opposite Mae Sam Laep village in Sop Moei district, Mae Hong Son province. Thai rangers from the 36th Ranger Regiment evacuated panicked residents to Huai Kong Kaad village after the impact.
Read more: Khaosod English
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.
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