Myanmar anti-coup fighters risk lives making weapons from YouTube videos
- Anti-coup militias have turned to risky trial-and-error operations in making their own weapons in a bid to turn the tide in the fighting against the military
- Making these crude munitions can be hazardous with several fighters suffering injuries, while another fighter was killed after testing a mortal shell
Almost two years after seizing power, the military has been unable to crush local militias that have sprang up to fight the putsch with hit-and-run tactics.
In turn, these People’s Defence Forces (PDF) remain massively outgunned by the military’s artillery strikes, Chinese and Russian-made jets and Israeli-patterned rifles.
Captured weapons and expensive purchases on the black market have provided patchy boosts to PDF firepower, analysts say, but many militias have turned to risky trial-and-error operations to churn out their own rockets, mines and mortars.
“We just learn how to build weapons from the internet or YouTube,” said Nay Min, an anti-coup fighter from the northern Sagaing region.
“We search how to cook saltpetre (potassium nitrate), how to combine it to get gunpowder, how to build rifles. We haven’t received any training,” he said.