Myanmar earthquake update

You will have been shocked and distressed by the reports about the devastating earthquake in Mandalay. In 2007 I started a Higher Education College (HEC) in Mandalay for bright but poor young women and men to train them as teachers and development workers. We have hundreds of graduates who have returned to remote villages to teach.

The past 17 years have been challenging but the happiest time of my life. I have never met in any other country such kind, gracious and appreciative young people with cheerful eyes and joyous hearts. However, for the 160 young people presently studying at the HEC everything has changed. They have been living under a brutal military junta since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in the coup on 1^st February 2021. 50,000 have been killed, 25,000 are languishing in dilapidated prisons, 3.5 million have been displaced and living in Internally Displaced camps.

The military has turned the country into a failed State with a humanitarian crisis. Villages have been wiped out, Christian churches, Buddhist monasteries and Muslim mosques have been bombed and burnt. Two of our graduates were shot dead by the military, another one is in prison and others have disappeared with no contact.

On top of this tyranny the powerful earthquake has brought further devastation, grief and suffering. The junta compounded people’s suffering by continuing airstrikes within hours of the earthquake and as people searched for loved ones in the rubble.

Our Higher Education College (HEC) in Mandalay has been severely damaged. The teachers and students were lucky to get out of the classrooms safely when the earthquake struck as bricks, lumps of concrete and debris from the ceilings was raining down on them. At present the students cannot go back into their classrooms or dormitories as they are so badly damaged and very unsafe. At night they sleep on the ground outside. Most people are living and sleeping on the streets. Food, medicine and clean water are scarce.