Myanmar anti-coup forces target Mandalay in struggle to oust military

Trained and guided by ethnic armed groups, Myanmar’s volunteer fighting forces are challenging the generals’ grip.

Myanmar’s second-biggest city is beginning to feel like a city under siege. But while armed groups might be at the gates of Mandalay, most residents do not consider them the enemy.

“I’ve lived in Singu since I was born and we’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Tun, a 47-year-old resident of a small town in the Mandalay region, roughly 80km (50 miles) north of the city. He asked to be identified by only part of his name for security reasons.

“At first, most residents didn’t flee from the town because we had no experience with war. When the fighting got more intense near the town, we understood we couldn’t stay here.”

While Myanmar’s borderlands, home to many of the country’s ethnic minorities, have been ravaged by conflict for decades, the mostly Bamar areas in the heart of the country had not seen conflict since World War II. That all changed when the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in 2021, plunging the country into a political crisis and civil war.

Since then, the Myanmar military has suffered stunning defeats at the hands of longstanding ethnic armed groups and more-recently-established pro-democracy militias. But perhaps no development has been as unexpected as the recent capture of four towns in northern Mandalay, leaving the anti-coup alliance within striking distance of a city with a population of nearly 2 million people.