Sunday marked five years since the military coup in Myanmar that sparked a devastating, ongoing civil war. Five years on, 70,000 people have been killed, 3.6 million have been displaced, and 16 million require humanitarian assistance.
Canadian foreign affairs minister Anita Anand said in a statement that “the situation has deteriorated into one of the world’s most severe human rights and humanitarian crises.” The Irrawaddy, an independent newspaper covering Myanmar, argued that, as of 2026, the country of 54.5 million is “worse off than ever.”
ASEAN foreign ministers discussed Myanmar at a retreat in the Philippines last week, reaffirming their “collective resolve in finding a peaceful and lasting solution that is Myanmar-owned and Myanmar-led.” ASEAN has tried to cobble together peace in Myanmar based on the April 2021 Five-Point Consensus, which calls for — among other goals — an end to violence and dialogue among all parties. But ASEAN's efforts have yielded little to no progress. A pro-democracy shadow government, meanwhile, has spearheaded “few major successes” since 2021.
As Senior Fellow Kai Ostwald writes in a new book co-published with APF Canada, “numerous factors — including growing battle fatigue, greater intervention from neighbouring countries, and political repositioning among key stakeholders — are moving the conflict into a new phase that will eventually produce political change in the country.”
Although violence could decrease, Ostwald writes in Futures of Myanmar: Post-Conflict Scenarios that Myanmar will likely “have a high degree of political fragmentation,” and that the prospects for meaningful democratization are “limited.”
