The coup d’état sparked widespread protests and a fierce opposition movement manned by the People’s Defence Forces and local militias. But the junta is responding with force, using every weapon at their disposal to crush dissent — even fire. They’ve been accused of burning down entire villages to cut off supplies to resistance fighters and stamp out morale.
Tracking and documenting these fires is difficult, but the team at Myanmar Witness has been using open-source tools to verify and record arson attacks since the coup. We spoke to one of their analysts to learn more about how fire has been used as a weapon of war.