Myanmar’s Second-Largest City Overwhelmed by Third Wave of War Refugees

The surging cost of rent and food, absence of jobs and proclivity for extortion among junta officials are driving people who fled to Myanmar’s second-largest city to escape war into further desperation, volunteers helping them say.

They estimate that about 150,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have fled to Mandalay city from northwestern Shan State and northern Mandalay Region since Operation 1027 resumed on June 25.

Rents have doubled in one month and as many as five families are squeezing into a single apartment, volunteers say.
“People have been fleeing to Mandalay en masse since the end of June. Many don’t have friends or relatives in the city,” one volunteer said, explaining that finding a place to live is the top challenge. “Displaced people can’t afford high rents,” the volunteer said.

The latest major wave of IDPs is the third to arrive in the city of about 1.7 million people over the past two years. The first fled fighting in Sagaing Region in 2022 and the second fled northern Shan State after Operation 1027 was launched there on October 27 last year.

Monasteries in Mandalay are overcrowded, volunteers say.

Realtors say the cheapest rental unit, a 120-square-foot single-floor row house, now goes for 100,000 kyats (US$ 20) a month, up from 50,000 kyats a month ago.

U Nyo Win, a real-estate agent in Chanmyathazi Township, said the cheapest detached homes are in the suburbs and fashioned from bamboo. They now cost 550,000 kyats a month, up from 300,000 a month ago, he said.

Rents shot up as IDPs flowed into the city, he said.

A realtor in Patheingyi Township said some landlords will not rent to IDPs because junta officials are known to seal off the homes, even rented ones, of people they arrest.

Ward administrators, police, members of junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militias and other junta personnel are reportedly turning the humanitarian crisis into an opportunity to extort money. They are checking homes for “unregistered guests,” arresting IDPs found inside them and forcing them to pay cash to be released. In other cases, they tell them to pay fines.

One IDP whose home in Mawlu town was destroyed in an arson built a home on the outskirts of Mandalay about six months ago, explaining: “My household is not registered in Mandalay, so I have to report to authorities as a guest.
Last month, I was summoned to the ward administration office and fined.”

Some IDPs have bought cheap land on the city’s outskirts, primarily in Patheingyi, Chanmyathazi and Pyigyitagun townships, to build makeshift homes. However, they are unaware that they face eviction from the land they believe they paid, city residents said.

Junta-appointed ward administrators are coordinating with other junta officials to sell land to IDPs that “squatters” had previously been evicted from. Unlike city residents who are aware of the evictions, the IDPs are left in the dark about the status of the land, Mandalay residents said.

Jobs are almost nonexistent in Mandalay because, like elsewhere in Myanmar, the economy is shrinking, Mandalay residents said. Many IDPs are suffering from hunger because they cannot afford food.

An IDP from Singu Township’s Letpan Hla explained that he and his family had to flee because their home was near a junta checkpoint. When fighting between regime and resistance troops broke out, all they were able to take with them when they fled were a few pieces of clothing, he said.

“We left everything behind. I got a place to stay thanks to friends, but I can’t find a job.”