As the sound of mortar and artillery barrages echoed and jets circled overhead, volunteer doctors with the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a faith-based frontline aid organization, worked frantically in an improvised field hospital in Karenni State, Burma (Myanmar). They were fighting against time to amputate the foot of a nineteen-year-old soldier who had stepped on a landmine.
The operation was successful. While the young man lost his foot, the doctors were able to save his leg and, most importantly, his life. After the operation, he was transported to the only high-functioning hospital in the region. The hospital is staffed by a small number of doctors and several volunteer nurses—few of whom are academically qualified and none of whom are paid. It has a limited supply of medicines and equipment and operates without running water or electricity. In cases too severe for local treatment, patients must endure a brutal one- to two-day journey across unpaved roads through a war zone and cross illegally into Thailand.
Once in Thailand, various aid organizations, including large international groups and smaller faith-based ones, provide treatment, with some patients ultimately supported by ethnic Burmese Christian churches while receiving care in Chiang Mai’s hospitals. This collaborative system between faith-based organizations and large international and governmental groups has been a critical lifeline for countless souls in Burma for decades. However, recent cuts to U.S. aid are beginning to unravel this fragile network, putting lives in jeopardy.
The armed conflict in Burma, which has been simmering since 1948, erupted into full-scale war following the 2021 military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. Since then, an estimated six thousand civilians have been killed, and 3.5 million people have been internally displaced. Essential services such as water, electricity, phone, and internet access have ceased across most of the country. Agricultural production has been decimated by government bombings and displacement, leading to food insecurity. The forced redistribution of the population into highly concentrated internally displaced persons (IDP) camps has led to massive deforestation, causing landslides, floods, and water shortages in mountainous regions where civilians have sought refuge from the violence. The national currency has crashed, and the country suffers from severe inflation, making it even harder for the population—most of whom are unemployed—to afford basic necessities like food and medicine. The United Nations estimates that 20 million people in Burma will require humanitarian assistance this year.
Across the border in Thailand, approximately ninety thousand Burmese live in official refugee camps, while up to 4 million others are believed to be living as unofficial refugees—many of them in camps that receive support mostly from private sources. While large international organizations have historically supported the official refugee camps, much of this assistance came from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has now ceased after President Donald Trump instituted a near-total freeze on foreign aid. Food distribution and medical treatment in the camps have been halted.
Noom, the Southeast Asia director for Partners Relief & Development, a Christian humanitarian service organization working with Burmese refugees and IDPs, explained the impact of USAID cuts on refugees in the region. “Around the Thai-Burmese border, there are nine official camps with 86,000 refugees. However, the actual population exceeds 100,000.” He pointed out that the International Rescue Committee (IRC) had been the primary donor, providing funding for health care, medicine, and health-care workers in these camps. But on January 27, the IRC officially suspended its project, limiting clinics to emergency care and delivery cases. “A patient with kidney failure had to be transported to a Thai hospital for dialysis. But other departments, like outpatient care, have completely stopped,” Noom said. In response, the camps quickly had to form new partnerships to fill the gaps in service.
The Border Consortium, which provides food and cooking fuel to the refugees, is also running out of money. Noom noted, “The consortium is spending at least 1.3 million dollars per month to support the refugees. But they’ve recently announced that their funds will only last for another month and a half.”
Inside Burma, the situation is even more dire, with limited support reaching those in need. David Eubank, head of the FBR, expressed frustration over the lack of aid entering the war zone to assist internally displaced people. His organization provides frontline medical assistance, employee training, children’s programs, and ministry, and operates on a budget of approximately $6.5 million per year to cover their work in Burma, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. With that, FBR still managed to provide over half a million dollars per year in humanitarian aid in Karenni State alone.
“We’ve bought about sixty vehicles now,” said Eubank. “They’re all used as people-movers and ambulances. We’ve spent nearly a million dollars on medicine over the past four years, and we’ve supported various hospitals with x-ray machines, blood banks, and cash to help build four hospitals and about eight clinics.” All of this was on top of their regular missions: rescuing and ministering to wounded civilians and soldiers from the frontlines.
Eubank recounts how his organization is often the only one operating in the most afflicted areas. “I’ve mostly seen us inside of Burma, and now Novi sent us $15,000 for the IDPs,” Eubank said. Novi, a faith-based organization that focuses on helping children in war zones, particularly in Ukraine, is one of the few providing support. As Eubank described it, Novi founder, Steve Gumaer, is “a straight-up Christian.” Apart from this recent donation, he noted that much of the aid reaching the war zone comes from anonymous donors, Christians supporting FBR, and churches in the United States that contribute directly to ethnic Christians in Karenni and Karen States.
Dr. Mitch Ryan of Earth Mission Asia (EMA), a faith-based medical mission operating in neighboring Karen State, echoed Eubank’s frustration, saying that there was almost no aid coming across the border. Large international NGOs and governmental agencies have millions of dollars in funding, but they stop at the Thai border. Meanwhile, a small fraction of the money they spend on salaries, rent, and overhead would go a long way toward saving lives inside Burma. However, Ryan was quick to point out that large organizations are doing valuable work in Thailand and that if EMA has a patient whose injuries cannot be treated in Burma, the other organizations are willing to accept the patient at the border.
EMA runs a three-year training program for physician assistants in Karen State, where the school faces the constant risk of airstrikes. Ryan explained that their mission focuses on training students who will graduate and serve as primary-care physicians for internally displaced people in unserved regions. The skills of the physician assistants are amplified through satellite communication with volunteer doctors who provide advice on difficult cases. “We have patients who travel a week to get to us. We’re the only ones in northern Karen State providing surgical or advanced medical care,” he said.
Because EMA did not receive much funding from USAID, their work was not interrupted by the cuts. But demand for their services and medical assistance is increasing as other programs have shut down. Ryan and his team remain committed to providing help, but acknowledged that “there’s no guarantee at all that we aren’t going to get hit.” He and most of his team are Christians; they hold devotional services and have a chaplain. “‘Walking by faith’ means that even if we do get hit, I know we’re doing the right thing and God has it in his control.”
While the volunteer aid organizations are essential to keeping people alive, the Karenni government is supporting internally displaced people as much as their resources allow. According to Khun Bedu, a former seminarian who now serves as chairman of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, a pro-democracy faction fighting in the civil war, various donors have supported the Karenni State with between six and ten million dollars. However, that was before the United States, which was the largest contributor, made its cuts. With that aid ending, support from religious organizations has become even more crucial.
Karenni State is a Catholic-majority region, but due to displacement, the number of Baptists, Buddhists, and animists has increased since the fighting began. One Baptist pastor in the war zone is an internally displaced person who has a church and holds services but lacks a larger religious institution to support him. He does what he can for his two hundred congregants, but his resources are extremely limited. In contrast, the Catholic Church, with its hierarchical structure and international ties, is in a somewhat better position to provide aid.
Fr. Pias, a Catholic priest in Karenni State, explained that his church is providing education to three hundred internally displaced people. Due to the threat of government airstrikes, he “break[s] them into three groups at different locations.” Fr. Alfonso, from a parish several hours away, described how displacement has strained already limited resources. Before the coup, his parish had five thousand people; now it has eight thousand. While he welcomes the additional parishioners, he also has to find a way to provide for so many more needy people. His flock is now spread across eight IDP camps, and he and his six unpaid staff do their best to visit them, offer aid, and provide spiritual guidance. Fr. Alfonso oversees 245 unpaid teachers educating an estimated three thousand displaced children. Like all pastors in Burma, he emphasized that the church helps everyone: Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, or animist. Of the children being educated through the church’s initiatives, he estimated that only about two-thirds are Catholic.
Many of the IDP camps are difficult to reach, hidden deep in the jungle and in mountain passes, and like the hundreds of churches that have been bombed since 2021, they remain targets for government airstrikes. Fr. Alfonso explained that the Maryknoll Foundation, a Catholic charity, provides a small distribution of fish paste, beans, noodles, and cooking oil each month. Fr. John, a priest in the United States, sends support in the form of rice, sometimes as much as two hundred to three hundred sacks per month. “I just try to give, especially to the needy,” he said. The UN minimum standard for nutrition is sixteen kilograms of rice per person per month, but many IDP camps are able to provide only sixteen kilograms per family per month, with little else. “It is not enough, but we just ask the people to use it…sparingly, slowly,” Fr. Alfonso added. Some camps don’t even have soap or hygiene products for distribution.
One of the challenges with small, faith-based aid compared to large governmental support is its inconsistency. Fr. Alvin, a priest in a parish about a three-hour drive from Fr. Alfonso, showed me an empty dormitory behind his church. “This is where we used to house war orphans, but we had to stop because we ran out of money.”
Ultimately, foreign aid is necessary because the Burmese government refuses to help its own people. The Burmese military government’s response to the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck the country’s central region on March 28 has been marked by the same greed and mismanagement that has defined its rule. As of April 2, the official death toll has risen to 2,700, with more than 4,500 injured and 441 still missing. Despite the widespread destruction—including damage to as many as ten thousand structures in Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city, and the near-total collapse of 80 percent of homes in some areas—the junta has refused to allow international aid into the country. Foreign aid workers have been denied entry, and visas for volunteers attempting to cross from Thailand with food, medicine, and supplies have been suspended.
The junta is also obstructing aid already inside the country from reaching some of the most devastated areas. Military checkpoints and newly imposed curfews are reportedly hindering rescue operations. Citizens in Mandalay and Shan State have reported that soldiers and police are targeting able-bodied young men and women involved in relief work, attempting to conscript them into the military.
Electricity, phone, and internet access were already disrupted in much of the country due to the war, but since the quake, the military government has further restricted communications. They are limiting electricity to just two hours a day and tightening control over phone and internet access. This has left many in the Burmese diaspora desperate for news of loved ones.
Su, a Burmese student in Chiang Mai, managed to receive a single voice message from her friend Gue, who had gone to check on the Aung Myint Mo Hotel in Mandalay. Gue reported that the area around the collapsed hotel was sealed off. “They block access to the area,” he said. “We can’t even look or check. The fire department is there, but they’re doing nothing.”
When Gue asked around, she was told that two bodies remained in the rubble. “I told them I was family of the girl under the rubble and asked what they were going to do,” he said. “They told me the hotel would handle it with a bulldozer.” That is when the messages stopped.
Twenty-five-year-old Ek has had only sporadic contact with her sister in Mandalay, who described a grim situation: “There’s no first aid or rescue where we are. Emergency aid is being sent to government housing areas, but not everyone receives it. Only the offices of government officials seem to get help, and there are just a few people clearing debris.”
She added that in most parts of Mandalay, it’s ordinary people rescuing one another. “There aren’t any big rescue organizations here. They’re only going to places where they believe there are casualties.”
At the time of this writing, many victims have been trapped under collapsed buildings for more than five days—well beyond the so-called “golden window” of seventy-two hours during which survival is most likely. As time passes, the chances of finding survivors grow increasingly slim. Hser Po, a volunteer aid worker, reported, “In three neighborhoods of the city, there is a noticeable smell, though it hasn’t yet reached the level where masks are absolutely required.”
While civilians dug with their bare hands to reach loved ones trapped beneath the rubble, the Burma Army continued its war on the people. In the immediate aftermath of the quake—and in the days that followed—government forces launched a campaign of airstrikes on the quake-affected areas and across the ethnic states. At the same time, the generals are appealing for international aid. International organizations are being urged to withhold donations, as the money is likely to fund weapons rather than save lives. The situation in Burma was already dire, but the earthquake has deepened the people’s suffering and further exposed the depravity of the regime.
Fr. Alfonso, who was displaced at the beginning of the war, explained that as horrific as the war is, it also provides an opportunity to live out Jesus’ teachings. His displacement allowed him to live and suffer alongside his parishioners. “Jesus came to the world. He came for the sinners. He did not come for the righteous, but for the sinners. He came for the poor, for the needy.”
In a similar spirit, Fr. Alfonso appealed to President Trump to remember the Christian call to give to the needy. U.S. aid helped prevent some of the worst outcomes for those it reached; without it, Burmese refugees and displaced people will face even greater suffering. But even before the cuts, very little aid was making its way into the war zone or reaching internally displaced people. Any revamp of the aid system must prioritize delivering assistance to Burma’s interior—ideally through small faith-based organizations with low overhead—ensuring that aid reaches those who need it most.
