Myanmar's ethnic armies consolidate strongholds as junta weakens

NAY PYI TAW — Myanmar's ruling junta has lost control over vast tracts of territory, including access to much of its international borders, allowing ethnic armed groups to expand and consolidate regions under their control, two reports assessing the conflict said on May 30.

The country of 55 million people has been in turmoil since February, 2021 when the military ousted an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking widespread protests.

The street demonstrations, which were met with a brutal crackdown, morphed into an armed resistance movement that has combined with many of Myanmar's ethnic rebel armies to pose the most significant challenge to the military in decades.

The junta does not have effective control of Myanmar, having lost complete authority over townships covering 86 per cent of the country's territory that are home to 67 per cent of the population, according to the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M).

A junta spokesman did not respond to a call from Reuters seeking comment.

"The military junta does not control enough of the territory of Myanmar to uphold the core duties of the state," the SAC-M, an independent group of international experts set up after the coup to support the return of democracy, said in a briefing paper.

"The junta has abandoned significant territory and has been forced into a defensive posture in most parts of the country where it remains present."

Operation 1027, a coordinated offensive last October led by three ethnic armies, marked a key moment that exposed a weakened military, which ceded swathes of borderlands in Myanmar's north.

A series of offensives by ethnic armies since have pushed the junta out of peripheral areas all the way from the country's