The Myanmar
Conflict Monitor

• The Katha Offensive and Mass Displacement — On 2 January, the military opened an intensive offensive against Katha Township, deploying heavy artillery and close air support. The assault triggered the town-wide flight of civilians, with people displaced 100,000 times. We assess that this operation marked the opening phase of the military's early 2026 campaign to recapture lost urban territory across northern Sagaing Region.
• Airstrike on a Bhamo Funeral — Outside active combat, an aerial strike hit a civilian funeral in Bhamo Township, followed by a second strike on first responders, killing 22 civilians, including internally displaced persons (IDPs). With international humanitarian access blocked, local responders and their support networks bore the primary burden of emergency medical response and evacuation.
• Temporary Hold on Kyauktaga and the Deadliest Combat Day — Joint resistance forces (PDF/NUG/KNLA) entered Kyauktaga and pushed through to the strategic old Yangon–Mandalay highway, holding the town until around midday, though military forces re-established control over their base positions by 11 January at the latest. On 28 January, an engagement outside Kyaukpyu between the AA and military forces resulted in the deadliest single combat day of the entire quarter.
• Data Caveat: The 4 January Amnesty — The release of 6,134 individuals under the 4 January state amnesty produced a sharp, statistical spike in monthly prisoner releases; however, this administrative release does not reflect any reduction in ground-level political detentions or arrest patterns.

• The Recapture of Banmauk — Facing severe ammunition shortages, People’s Defense Forces (PDF) withdrew from Banmauk, allowing military forces and the allied Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) to re-enter the town behind heavy drone and air support. This engagement demonstrated the military's operational pattern of employing regional proxy forces to reclaim contested territory.
• Frontline Deployment of Conscripts and Proxies — In Hpasawng Township, the military deployed ground columns comprising newly inducted conscripts mobilized under the February 2024 conscription law. In Mawkmai Township, clashes broke out between the military-aligned Pa-O National Organization (PNO) militia and the Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA). Both events show the military pushing conscripts and local proxies to the frontline in place of its regular combat divisions. (Note: Casualty claims from these clashes represent unilateral assertions by the respective forces).
• Killings of Non-Combatants in Thayetchaung (Win Wa) — During operational movements around the Win Wa camp in Thayetchaung Township, military columns detained and summarily executed roughly 20 civilians, including displaced persons and travellers encountered along the transit route.
• Airstrike on a Village Market in Ponnagyun — On 24 February, an airstrike struck a crowded village market in Ponnagyun Township—an AA-controlled territory sheltering IDPs—killing 18 civilians, the majority of whom were women and children.

• The Rakhine Axis Approaches the Capital — The AA pressed its advance toward Ponnagyun, causing nearly entire rural populations between Sittwe and Ponnagyun to flee, with people displaced 200,000 times as combat edged directly toward the perimeter of the state capital.
• The Tagaung Counter-Offensive — In Mandalay Region, the military launched an offensive to retake Tagaung, the final urban center held by resistance forces in the region, with people along the riverbanks displaced 100,000 times. This represented a continuation of the military's urban recapture drive in the central-northern heartland that began in January.
• Human Shields in Nyaunglebin and the Katha Monastery Bombing — In Nyaunglebin District, a military column detained over 300 villagers as hostages and human shields, executing 28 civilians. In Katha Township, an airstrike bombed a Buddhist monastery sheltering displaced persons and school students, killing 50 civilians—the deadliest single aerial strike against civilians recorded this quarter.
• Airstrike on POWs and the Fall of Win Wa Base — In Ann Township, a military airstrike hit an AA detention facility; according to the AA, the majority of those killed were captured military personnel held as prisoners of war. Conversely, on 11 March, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) overran and seized the strategic Win Wa base in Thayetchaung Township, a position the military had garrisoned for over three decades. These divergent events illustrate that territorial control did not move in a single direction.

Total conflict events recorded in the first quarter of 2026 increased by 6.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. This escalation was driven primarily by an expansion in armed conflict events (+10.7%) and strategic developments, whereas public protests and civil unrest declined by 17.9%. This structural shift aligns directly with ground dynamics: intensifying kinetic confrontations generated by the military's campaigns to retake lost urban hubs and reciprocal resistance counter-attacks.

An analysis of event types highlights the specific mechanisms driving civilian casualties. Standoff artillery and missile strikes targeting civilians totaled 950 events—running nearly parallel to the 1,078 armed clashes recorded across the quarter. This parity indicates that civilian harm was largely inflicted not through close-quarters ground skirmishes, but by indirect artillery fire and aerial bombardment.

January recorded the highest monthly event count of the quarter. This peak reflected high combat volume (672 armed conflict events) alongside an extraordinary concentration of intimidation incidents (310) and troops stationed in villages, schools and monasteries (102), both of which were markedly higher than in subsequent months. Both categories contracted sharply in February. By March, armed conflict events rose to their highest proportion of total monthly events, correlating directly with intensifying ground offensives.

Incidents of forced recruitment and portering reached their quarterly peak in February, coinciding with the operational deployment of columns incorporating newly mobilized conscripts. Concurrently, fatalities from landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) climbed 41.8% over the preceding quarter, claiming 397 lives. Of these, 379 were personnel from the Myanmar military and affiliated armed groups. While incident records document casualty affiliation rather than the origin of individual devices, casualty ratios indicate that mine warfare operated as a primary asymmetric defensive interdiction tactic against advancing military columns along key transit routes.

Total conflict fatalities increased by 5.7% compared to the previous quarter. Although the quarter was two calendar days shorter, the daily fatality average rose from 51.0 to 55.1 deaths per day, confirming that this increase reflected genuine ground escalation rather than temporal variance.

Military and pro-military personnel accounted for 71.5% of total recorded fatalities. As military counter-offensive columns entered territories held by resistance forces, they encountered substantial casualties along primary movement corridors, including ambushes in areas such as Oktwin, the Sagaing–Wetlet road, Falam, and Yinmarbin.

The ten deadliest events alone accounted for 20.5% (over one-fifth) of all fatalities recorded in the quarter. Consequently, one or two high-intensity engagements can substantially alter the quarterly aggregate, meaning quarter-on-quarter trends must be evaluated alongside this event concentration. Furthermore, fatality figures for these mass-casualty events are based on unilateral claims by the respective actors, recorded as conservative minimum estimates.

While total civilian fatalities declined by 10.9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, monthly disaggregation reveals an opposing trend. Civilian deaths mounted steadily from 246 in January to 446 in March, demonstrating that the quarterly aggregate obscures a severe intra-quarter escalation.

Crucially, civilians were not killed within large-scale military battles. None of the top ten deadliest combat events included civilian deaths; instead, of 942 recorded civilian fatalities, 822 occurred within direct violence against civilians. Civilian harm was therefore the cumulative product of numerous localized, standoff strikes directed against villages, markets, and shelters. During the peak fatality month of March, the detention and execution of villagers as human shields in Nyaunglebin and the aerial bombardment of a displacement monastery in Katha stood as prominent examples of this vulnerability.

Conflict events spread across 282 townships nationwide, expanding slightly compared to the prior quarter. Of these, 156 townships recorded conflict continuously across all three months of the quarter. For populations residing in these 156 townships, hostilities were uninterrupted, with no single month of respite.

Sagaing Region remained the area with the highest aggregate incident count; however, the combined fatality share of the central dry zone (Sagaing and Magway regions) declined from 34.8% to 29.8% quarter-on-quarter. The quarter’s deadliest engagements occurred mainly in coastal Rakhine (Kyaukpyu and Ann), Southern Shan (Mawkmai), and Kayah State (Hpasawng). In eastern Bago Region, event volume surged by 67.0%, reflecting resistance attacks against bases and columns along the old Yangon–Mandalay highway (Kyauktaga and Oktwin) alongside military sweep operations and human-shield abuses in Nyaunglebin District.

Townships recording the highest event frequencies diverged geographically from those recording the highest fatalities. Townships such as Myawaddy, Sittwe, and Hpakant experienced chronic, daily friction yet were absent from the top ten deadliest townships list. Conversely, several high-fatality townships were shaped by one or two acute, mass-casualty events. In Ann Township, for example, only seven events were recorded, yet they produced 117 fatalities, driven almost entirely by the single airstrike on the detention site. Incident density maps illustrate zones of chronic, protracted friction, whereas fatality maps highlight acute points where kinetic operations reached peak lethality. (Note: Only four townships—Kyaukpyu, Thayetchaung, Yinmarbin, and Myingyan—appeared simultaneously on both the top-ten incident and fatality lists).

Sagaing Region continued to record the highest absolute civilian death toll, with 292 fatalities. In Kachin State, civilian fatalities (81) exceeded military/pro-military deaths (48). The non-combat airstrike on a funeral in Bhamo Township typified this elevated civilian vulnerability.

Technically, Map 1 excludes 653 conflict events that could not be geocoded to an individual township boundary. These unmapped events encompass spatially diffuse developments, such as the mass cross-boundary displacement between Sittwe and Ponnagyun and the 23 March column engagement along the Sagaing–Wetlet highway.

Out of 1,815 armed conflict events recorded this quarter, the Myanmar military participated in 1,610, with a total of 150 unique participating entities recorded across these events. This distribution captures the structurally asymmetric architecture of the war: a single institutional military confronting a geographically dispersed array of local resistance organizations across multiple fronts. Excluding broad coding aggregates such as "Combined Group" (284 events) and "Unidentified Armed Group" (400 events), the Arakan Army (AA) was the most active named actor, participating in 222 events, directly reflecting the intense frontlines in Kyaukpyu and Ponnagyun.

While total civilian fatalities declined quarter-on-quarter, the proportion attributable to military operations rose from 82.1% to 87.9% (828 out of 942 recorded civilian deaths). Civilian physical peril became increasingly concentrated around military kinetic actions. Disaggregating events by layer confirms that the vast majority of civilian deaths occurred not as incidental casualties within armed battles (65 deaths), but within the protest and crackdown layer of Table 7 (844 deaths: the 822 civilian deaths in violence against civilians given in section 4, and 22 in other event types of that layer).

Out of 41 targeted killing incidents recorded, 11 targeted local administrators, representing the single most targeted demographic group. (Note: Incident data does not establish the organizational identity of perpetrators in these targeted killings).

Concurrently, several actors unrecorded in the fourth quarter of 2025 appeared in this quarter's screening. The Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA) engaged military-aligned PNO forces in Mawkmai, while specialized drone units, such as the Mon–Tanintharyi Brothers Drone Coalition, emerged across the southeastern coastal front. However, because unidentified armed groups were involved in 22.0% of all armed conflict events, figures for individually named organizations represent baseline conservative minimums.

Recorded displacement reached 857,498 (times people were displaced), rising 40.8% over the preceding quarter. (Note: This metric reflects instances of displacement, not unique headcounts). Over half of this volume (51.3%) was generated by just five mass-flight events, meaning the quarterly surge was driven by a small number of large-scale population flights.

Reported drivers of displacement centered on military air and artillery bombardment, advancing ground columns, and frontline movements. In January, intensive air and artillery strikes on Katha Township displaced people 100,000 times. In March, the AA’s advance toward Ponnagyun displaced people 200,000 times between Sittwe and Ponnagyun, while the military offensive against Tagaung displaced people a further 100,000 times. Civilians faced compounded insecurity even in designated shelters, as seen in March when an airstrike bombed a monastery sheltering displaced persons in Katha Township. With international aid channels blocked, local responders and their support networks bore the direct burden of survival assistance.

The total number of people detained (9,285) declined by 26.6% compared to the prior quarter. However, monthly tracking reveals that February was the peak month for detentions (3,978 people detained), coinciding in timing with the quarter's highest recorded forced recruitment and portering operations (132 events). At the township level, Monywa recorded the highest number of people detained. In Myawaddy Township, a Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) faction forcibly rounded up over 300 youths as porters, with some taken at gunpoint. (Note: Data does not confirm whether these 300 individuals are subsumed within Myawaddy’s recorded total of 533 people detained).

Total releases reached 15,673 individuals; however, these were driven primarily by two state amnesties declared by the military authorities: 6,134 on 4 January and 7,337 on 2 March. Because these amnesties drew from the general nationwide prison population—including non-political criminal convicts—they do not indicate the release of individuals detained in connection with active conflict, nor can they be compared directly against conflict-related detention totals.

Recorded defections and surrenders rose steadily each month. However, March figures include a disputed military claim on 19 March alleging that 506 resistance personnel surrendered. Local resistance commanders dismissed this claim as psychological warfare, underscoring that the apparent increase rests on disputed data.

Based on records through 31 March 2026, five key military and humanitarian trends warrant close observation in the second quarter:

• Civilian Fatality Trajectory — Civilian fatalities rose steadily from January through March. Whether this upward trajectory persists into the second quarter must be monitored. However, because one or two mass-casualty events (such as the Katha monastery airstrike) can substantially shift monthly totals, three months of data remain insufficient to establish a structural, long-term trend.
• The Rakhine Front and the Sittwe Perimeter — Through 31 March, records show the AA advancing toward Ponnagyun, with hostilities shifting toward the state capital, Sittwe. Active combat and displacement patterns around Sittwe Township require ongoing monitoring. It must be noted that displacement figures for this corridor rest largely on a single conservative minimum figure of "more than 200,000" times people were displaced.
• Recapture Operations in the Northern Heartland — In Sagaing and Mandalay regions, military counter-offensives against Katha and Tagaung continued during March. Territorial control shifts and renewed displacement in these contested areas must be watched. Because territorial shifts during the first quarter were symmetrical across both sides, there is currently no evidence of unidirectional momentum.
• The Eastern Bago Corridor — Conflict events in eastern Bago surged by 67.0%, marked by kinetic activity along the old Yangon–Mandalay highway. Future quarterly data will determine whether this represents a sustained operational shift along this strategic artery or a temporary quarterly spike.
• Defection and Surrender Figures — While monthly defections and surrenders trended upward, more than half of the March aggregate rests on a single disputed military claim (506 personnel). This figure should not be interpreted as an established ground trend.