The Wounds of War

Battered Burma’s unanswered question: when will the fighting end?

The horrors of war are all too visible on Myo Myint’s scarred body. The former Burma Army trooper has only one arm and one leg. The fingers of one hand are just stumps, he’s almost blind in one eye and pieces of landmine shrapnel still lodge in his body.

Myo Myint: Crippled and disillusioned by war

Myo Myint is one of countless thousands of men and women maimed for life in Burma’s ongoing civil war, which has been raging for more than half a century—one of Asia’s longest unsolved conflicts.

The story of Myo Myint’s fate vividly reflects his country’s own suffering and its decline from relative prosperity and health to its present status as one of the world’s poorest countries.

When Burma gained independence in 1948 it was among Asia’s most promising emergent democracies, with a potentially highly successful economy.