‘I wanted to cry for my country’: Myanmar students suffer as they watch coup aftermath from exile in Thailand

Business student Kaung Kaung dreams of founding a social enterprise in Myanmar and Naw Say Say of being a nurse there. Both now wonder if they can ever return

Hong Kong charity Connecting Myanmar helps students like them from Myanmar and their families, and is seeking funds for a health centre on the Thai border

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An elderly protester at a demonstration against the military coup in Dawei's Launglon township in Myanmar. Photo: AFP/Dawei Watch

Published: 7:15am, 8 Jun 2021Updated: 7:40am, 8 Jun 2021

Naw Say Say was shocked and saddened when she woke to news on February 1 that the Myanmar military had overthrown the civilian government and declared a state of emergency.

“I was so worried and wanted to cry for my people and my country,” says Naw Say Say (not her real name) via Zoom from Thailand, where the 28-year-old is studying nursing science at Chiang Mai University. “I had an exam that day but all I could think about was my home … the whole country is suffering.”

Kaung Kaung (not his real name), a business management student at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok also from Myanmar, felt the same.

“I woke around 9am and read the news of a military coup and was like ‘here we go again’,” says Kaung Kaung via Zoom from the Thai capital, referring to the decades of repressive military rule, coups and conflict between ethnic minority groups that the country has suffered.

Naw Say Say’s mother (left) receives food from her neighbours in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand. Photo: courtesy of Connecting Myanmar

Both students receive support from Connecting Myanmar, a Hong Kong non-profit founded in 2012 that unites students in the city with those in and from Myanmar. The charity works mostly on the Thai-Myanmar border conducting voluntary work including legal education, news literacy workshops and medical check-up programmes.