COVID-19 AND COMPLEX CONFLICTS - The pandemic in Myanmar’s unsettled regions

Despite an uptake in formal meetings and a deterioration in the prospects of achieving between the EAOs, government and political peace through a political dialogue that had made parties showing promising signs of reviving the minor gains since 2016.11 In Rakhine State, the process in early 2020, the arrival of Covid-19 rise of the Arakan Army (AA) had led to the has diminished prospects of a brea. [...] The Tatmadaw’s ceasefire does not apply to the four-member body comprises representatives conflict in Rakhine State, given the government’s from government-affiliated entities including labelling of the Arakan Army as a ‘terrorist the National Reconciliation and Peace Center organization’ in line with the respective Myanmar (NRPC), the Peace Commission and the Ministry laws.37 The ceasefire may al. [...] and to other parties such as the Union Solidarity Ongoing concerns of this type indicate the fragile and Development Party, or the People’s Party, in and incomplete state of the peace process at the Bamar regions. [...] by conflict, the broader challenges of responding to Covid-19 intersect with debates about the future of the camps and the current challenges of sustaining them and supporting their inhabitants.77 The main burden of assisting IDPs and several thousand migrant returnees from China, Thailand, and other parts of Myanmar has fallen on Kachin civil society and aid groups. [...] After re-opening in August, Chinese Across the State, the most profound impact of authorities again restricted border activity, due to the pandemic response — largely due to the an outbreak in the Chinese city of Ruili.83 This kind closure of the border with China, the lockdown, of response could conceivably continue to affect and the restrictions on movement — has been Kachin and Shan States for.