Why Myanmar’s disabled war veterans are still begging or hawking on streets
Tourists and locals a source of sustenance for many former soldiers who lost limbs fighting rebels; Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD, now in power, will focus on political prisoners, not ex-servicemen
Disabled and collecting fees to use a public toilet in a busy Yangon market was not how Kyaw Kyaw Oo imagined the life of a soldier when he lied about his age to join the Myanmar army at 16.
Four years later, a landmine blast tore through his legs during fighting in the country’s east. He nearly died from an infection after an eight-day journey to hospital and lost both his legs.
Discharged in 1999, he was unemployed and living at home, relying on his ageing parents for support. In 2008 he moved to Yangon, the country’s largest city, where an official “had pity” on him and helped him get a job at the market.
For some 60 years, Myanmar has been in a state of perpetual civil war, with multiple ethnic armed groups killing and maiming unknown thousands of soldiers. With military casualties a closely guarded secret, wounded veterans were kept largely out of public view.
