Myanmar Spring Chronicle – September 15 View
(MoeMaKa, September 16, 2025)
More people are giving up their lives amid unbearable hardship
Amid conditions so harsh that it is difficult just to earn enough each day to feed one’s family, reports increasingly show people taking their own lives. While most suicides are individual decisions, there have also been cases in which parents, unable to provide for their children, poisoned them and then killed themselves.
In recent days in Yangon there have been sporadic incidents of people jumping into the water from bridges—such as the Bailey bridge over the Nga Moe Yeik Creek and bridges over the Pazundaung Creek in Thingangyun Township—or dying by hanging. According to media reports, in just the last two weeks there were at least three suicides in Yangon: a working-age woman, a couple, and a man.
With the civil war raging, tens or even hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) have moved to major cities and are trying to survive there, just as job opportunities have fallen sharply compared with the pre-war period.
People from war-affected areas are sheltering in nearby cities: IDPs from northern and southern Shan State and Kayah (Karenni) State have moved to Taunggyi; those from Kachin State, northern Shan, upper Mandalay Region, and Sagaing Region have gone to Mandalay; people from Rakhine State have moved to Pathein in Ayeyarwady Region and to Yangon.
Not everyone in conflict zones can flee to another town. Those without urban ties, relatives who can host them, or the means to travel have had to move around locally to stay alive. For example, many residents of Sittwe, the Rakhine State capital under junta control, have remained because they cannot leave. Since fighting resumed, Rakhine State has faced travel bans and import restrictions; movement between towns is tightly controlled. Prices have soared and jobs have dwindled, making survival extremely difficult in towns like Sittwe. At the end of June, five members of one family in Sittwe’s Min Gan ward died by suicide: the parents reportedly poisoned three children’s rice porridge and then hanged themselves because they could no longer afford regular meals. Even before that, in May this year, there was a similar incident among families in a Muslim IDP camp in Sittwe.
Across Myanmar, the junta still controls orders and policies concerning commerce, exchange, and cross-border trade. Under normal circumstances, goods from Rakhine would be shipped to other regions by river and road. But since fighting reignited in November 2023, the junta has blocked trade, allowing only limited “quota” shipments of goods, relief items, and fuel. It has become hard to sell rice grown in Rakhine to other regions, and even fishing is restricted. The result is a region-wide economic and security crisis that has contributed to family suicides.
Even in areas not under a complete trade blockade like Rakhine, domestic prices have become chaotic due to closures on the Thai border, seizures and checkpoints targeting Thai goods already inside Myanmar, and tighter import licensing. Combined with the post-coup collapse in production and the kyat’s depreciation—and foreign-currency restrictions on border and maritime trade—prices have surged. Within Myanmar, various armed actors, including junta units, impose taxes along transport routes, and ever-present risks of damage or death raise haulage costs to unprecedented levels—costs ultimately borne by consumers.
Everyday food prices now strain families who struggle to find work: a cup of tea costs at least 1,000–2,500 kyat; a basic meal 4,000–5,000 kyat. On top of this, young people face the threat of the conscription law; even when not immediately drafted, many households pay monthly “service-avoidance” bribes ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of kyat. All of this creates crushing physical and psychological pressure, pushing some toward the desperate choice of suicide.
Although communities wish to support one another to overcome hardship and pressure, in reality the severe difficulties people themselves face have become obstacles to providing that mutual aid.