As Myanmar descends deeper into war, its journalists remain among the last to document the crisis, even after fleeing across the Thai border to safety.

by Emily Ou Yong and Romaine Chan 

MAE SOT, Thailand – As midnight drew near, the shuffling footsteps outside Mr Hmue Eain Zaw’s door grew louder. Then came the sharp clack of rifles – with one glance out the window, the 34-year-old Myanmar journalist knew: the military junta was here. 

Dragged out the door, he was met by a hundred soldiers encircling his house. Within hours, he was thrown into an interrogation room, beaten and pressed for the names of other exiled journalists on the military’s “wanted” list. 

Mr Zaw had been reporting anonymously as a freelancer for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) when he was arrested in 2021. 

As the military junta was not able to find evidence of his work, he was let go after a week with a warning: “If you work as a journalist again, we will kill you.” 

However, abandoning journalism was never an option. For the next year, Mr Zaw operated from the shadows of safe houses scattered across Myanmar. While on the run, he founded his own news agency, New Day Myanmar, with two journalist friends. 

In December 2022, he crossed the border into Mae Sot – the town that has become a sanctuary for exiled Myanmar reporters, where they are close to home, yet just beyond the military junta’s reach. 

Since Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, over 200 journalists have been arrested, with six killed, according to figures from the Myanmar human rights organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. 

This makes Myanmar one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists, ranked by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). 

Besides Mae Sot, some journalists have settled in Chiang Mai, including 44-year-old Mr Zaw Htike, one of the founders of Myanmar Journalist Network, an organisation advocating for press freedom. 

In Myanmar, he estimates that no more than four to five independent media houses are still operating secretly, while 95 per cent are now overseas. 

The cost of passion 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign assistance in January cut off a critical funding lifeline for Myanmar’s independent journalists – affecting salaries, office rent, and support for obtaining legal documents. 

Independent media houses in Myanmar had been receiving funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through international non-governmental organisations like Internews.

Without steady income, some had to take part-time jobs in restaurants, factories, or even stop working as a journalist entirely. 

They had no choice, said Mr Zaw: “If you go back, the military is waiting for you.” 

Over 75 per cent of individual journalists suffered wage cuts, with at least half losing their jobs, according to a workshop in March 2025 that examined the media houses affected by these cuts. 

Two of these journalists were the co-founders of the Mandaing News Agency – editor Lynn Zay and his wife, Khiang Yi, who spoke under pseudonyms. 

“I am 10 million kyat (S$6,110) in debt for my living expenses,” said Lynn Zay, 43, who borrowed money from family and friends to stay afloat. 

Their agency operates with six experienced journalists, all working without salaries, with one reporter taking outside part-time work to make ends meet.

They are now dependent on story grants from Exile Hub – an organisation formed to support media professionals threatened by the military junta – which provides them with $1,500 to 2,000 USD monthly to keep operations running. 

Caught between freedom and fear 

In Pauktaw, a small coastal town within Myanmar’s western Rakhine State, Ms Khin Tharapi Oo’s Starlink signal slows to a crawl under the perpetual blanket of monsoon rain clouds.

Offering internet connection to remote areas, Starlink is a satellite service locals can turn to in rural Myanmar.

Electricity distributed from the government grid to power her devices is equally unreliable, and the 27-year-old journalist’s self-installed solar panels are rendered useless in the rainy season. 

Despite the patchy signal and dwindling electricity, Ms Oo still makes sure her story reaches Burmese media outlet Than Lwin Khet News (TLKN), based in Mae Sot, Thailand. 

But she has to tread lightly. Her name is on a watch list monitored by the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organisation opposing the military junta, which now controls 14 of 17 townships in Rakhine.

Ms Oo has to alter and release her articles according to the AA’s approval. At times, entire stories – such as a recent tax increase – are blocked or delayed. 

Even so, Ms Oo feels more secure than her journalist colleagues in states still under direct military rule. 

Mr Kaung Zaw Hein, a freelance photojournalist, is one such figure operating under far more dangerous conditions. 

His work takes him to the front lines of active combat zones, where he documents clashes between Myanmar’s military and opposition forces, and the military training of resistance forces. 

In July 2022, while photographing clashes in Kayah (Karenni) State, Mr Hein found himself on a mountaintop with resistance forces when Myanmar’s military deployed jet fighters to bomb their position. 

“One of the [fighters] called me, ‘Hey brother, climb down quickly,’” recalled the 31-year-old. “And the jet fighter targeted that place when I made it down…If we were five seconds late, I would have died.”

Why they persist 

Despite the arrests and financial hardship, these journalists continue their work, driven by a sense of duty. 

Ms Oo believes the media plays one of the most important roles in country national development. “I want to express these kinds of issues to the world,” she said. 

Reaffirming the press as a crucial “fourth estate” in a democracy, holding power accountable, Lynn Zay said his enthusiasm for being a journalist remains high. 

But he added a sobering caveat: “If things [worsen], we have to reconsider whether we still want to be journalists.” 

Still, they recognise their relative safety compared to colleagues still inside Myanmar. 

“Civilians have been murdered. Their houses have been burned [down]. There are no more human rights,” said Lynn Zay. 

An international story, ignored 

“Burma is an international problem,” said Mr Phil Thornton, an advisor to the IFJ, based in Thailand. “It’s one of the largest scam centres in the world, and it’s a haven for organised crime.” 

But its story receives limited coverage, partly because this stems from access issues – international journalists cannot obtain working visas from the military government and face extreme danger if they enter illegally. 

“The risk is that Myanmar becomes a black zone of information, because the financial and safety cost to know what’s happening within is getting increasingly high,” said Mr Arthur Rochereau, 26, advocacy officer at Paris-based campaign group Reporters Without Borders.

Veteran journalist Mr Thornton argues that the scale of the crisis – with its humanitarian, criminal, and geopolitical dimensions warrants urgent international attention. 

“There’s been about three and a half million people displaced from their homes, schools bombed by the military airstrikes, towns destroyed,” he said. “But Burma seems to fall off the radar for major news organisations are concerned.” 

For exiled journalists in Thailand, this global indifference only reinforces their sense of responsibility. 

Operating from cramped apartments and nondescript buildings scattered across Thailand, they remain among the few voices documenting one of the world’s most brutal ongoing conflicts.

Back in 2015, Mr Zaw interviewed the person-in-charge at a shelter in Yangon that cared for people living with HIV.
(Credit: Hmue Eain Zaw )In 2017, taken whilst Mr Zaw conducted a safety training for journalists.
(Credit: Hmue Eain Zaw)

This article is part of a package produced by a group of final-year undergraduates from Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, for the programme Going Overseas For Advanced Reporting, or Gofar. They reported from a town called Mae Sot at the Myanmar-Thailand border in July and August 2025. There, they met migrants and refugees displaced by six decades of civil war in Myanmar and are rebuilding their lives in Thailand.