JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Four years ago tomorrow, the military of Myanmar deposed the elected government, led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She remains in jail, and the country is mired in a brutal civil war largely forgotten by the outside world. Michael Sullivan reports from neighboring Thailand.
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MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: On the morning of February 1, an aerobics instructor in the capital Naypyidaw captured the beginning of the coup in real time while filming her routine.
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SULLIVAN: Behind her, dozens of military vehicles streamed down the wide boulevard, headed for parliament to prevent the elected government from convening. But it didn't take long for the people to resist, plunging the country into turmoil. Four years later, the United Nations says more than 3 1/2 million people have been displaced by the fighting, with more than 15 million - nearly a third of the population - facing acute food insecurity. Mary Callahan is a Myanmar scholar at the University of Washington.
MARY CALLAHAN: I think where we are now is there are pockets of famine all over the country. There are families who are very lucky to have some rice, absolutely no meat, but maybe fish paste or an egg for protein. The situation is quite bleak.
SULLIVAN: Not just in contested areas, but in government-controlled areas, like Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, where the economy has collapsed, supply chains are in tatters and prices are soaring, with ordinary people bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, according to the World Bank.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Burmese).
SULLIVAN: This woman, who wants to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal, is a single parent who cares for two elderly relatives with diabetes and heart problems. She says the price for a pack of 10 blood pressure tablets has soared from just 300 kyat to about 12,000 kyat since the coup. She spends most of her money on medicine for her parents and has stopped taking hers to save money. Her job and savings are gone. She's selling off her remaining jewelry to survive.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Burmese).
SULLIVAN: In conflict areas, the situation is even worse.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Crying).
SULLIVAN: The military targets combatants and civilians alike as it battles the insurgents. Twenty-nine-year-old Nay Chi is a medic for one of the people's defense forces battling the government outside Myanmar's second city, Mandalay.
NAY CHI: (Speaking Burmese).
SULLIVAN: "In emergencies, those hurt can't reach proper medical facilities in time to be saved," she says, "because of bad roads. Plus, even if we can get them there, government hospitals won't treat those wounded by the military."
And there are few doctors left there anyway, with most of the medical staff having joined the civil disobedience movement after the coup. This doctor is one of them. She asked not to be named for security reasons and is secretly treating patients in Yangon.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: To address the staffing gap, the junta has allowed less-qualified students to pass medical school entry and specialist exams, and now both the quantity and the quality of medical staff have declined.
SULLIVAN: Analysts say the health system has all but collapsed. The shortage of health care facilities countrywide has also caused TB and malaria to spike, with cholera outbreaks rampant as well - none of which is acknowledged by the military, and all of which, doctors say, pose a risk not just to Myanmar, but to the region in general, with no sign of an end to the civil war in sight.
Michael Sullivan, NPR News, Chiang Rai. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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