IPMSDL Condemns Daily Bombing Of Karen Communities: “A Criminal Regime Wages War On The People While Myanmar Suffers”

5 May 2026 – “While Myanmar’s people endure fuel shortages and hunger, the junta bombs Indigenous Peoples and ethnic nationality communities who protect forests and ancestral lands. We even just celebrated Earth Day, this crime against peoples and planet must end.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) strongly condemns the relentless airstrikes and artillery attacks by the Burma Army against Indigenous Karen communities across Kawthoolei throughout April 2026. While the people of Myanmar endure soaring fuel prices, hunger, transport paralysis, and deepening hardship from the global oil crisis, the “self-imposed, illegitimate and illegal” military regime continues to spend resources bombing Indigenous villages every day.

This is the height of heartlessness and criminality: while ordinary people queue for fuel, farmers cannot run tractors, and families struggle to buy food, the junta chooses warplanes over welfare, bombs over food, and terror over peace.

Reports from Karen civil society groups document repeated attacks from April 2 to April 19, striking homes, schools, clinics, churches, monasteries, farms, and public buildings. At least five civilians were killed and many more injured. Several attacks targeted communities during religious gatherings and funeral rites.

Beverly Longid, IPMSDL Co-convener said, “A self-imposed regime that bombs Indigenous Peoples while its own people suffer hunger, fuel shortages, and economic collapse has no legitimacy. This is not governance but state terrorism against the people.”

Myanmar is among the countries hardest hit in Asia by the current oil shock because of its already devastated economy. Gasoline prices in Myanmar surged by nearly 66% in one month, while diesel prices sharply increased.

Rice farmers have reportedly lined up overnight for diesel or turned to black market fuel at prices more than three times official rates. Food prices in Yangon have also surged by around 20% in just ten days.

“Indigenous Karen continue to conserve their forests and farms, go to community schools and survive amid the global oil crisis. But the junta is bombing schools, clinics, and Indigenous villages and punishing the people while pretending to rule them,” Longid added.

There are currently over 1.2 million internally displaced peoples (IDP) in Kawthoolei alone as a result of the intense conflict. Funding for emergency response also requires unimpeded, smooth and swift cross-border humanitarian assistance.

IPMSDL emphasizes that the Karen people are not only victims of state violence, they are defenders of ancestral lands, forests, watersheds, and biodiversity. The destruction of Indigenous communities in Karen territories is also an attack on the ecosystems they have protected for generations.

IPMSDL challenges the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and all relevant international bodies to immediately investigate these attacks and pursue accountability over the military junta. We call for fast, unimpeded access and expanded humanitarian support through cross-border and community-led channels.

We urge delegates at the 25th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to raise the plight of the Karen people and all Indigenous nations under military assault in Burma/Myanmar.

The world must recognize the truth: while Myanmar’s people struggle to survive the economic crisis and while Indigenous Peoples defend their forests, lives and livelihoods, the military regime wages war on them and on the future itself.

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