Photo Essays | Society | Southeast Asia
The pain from their injuries hasn’t gone away. Meanwhile, they face challenges in earning a livelihood.
Sofayatullah from Kung Taung village in Buthidaung township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State had earned a reputation for ferrying the maximum number of boat passengers every day. He also sold firewood occasionally for extra income. All that changed on December 19, 2023, when he placed a pile of firewood at a spot near his village where a landmine planted by the Myanmar military’s Infantry Battalion 551 exploded. “I remember hearing a deafening sound before falling unconscious. Then I realized that my left ankle was severed,” he recalled. Sofayatullah was taken to Buthidaung hospital by his father and other residents of the village, where another portion of his leg below the knee was amputated due to splinters. He continues to work as a boatman but no longer sells firewood.
More people are being killed or maimed by antipersonnel landmines in Myanmar than in any other country in the world. There were as many as 2,029 casualties in the country in 2025, almost double the number reported the previous year.
Myanmar’s military has been using antipersonnel landmines for several decades. A new trend since the military coup of February 2021 is that such mines are being used by non-state armed groups of the resistance as well, Landmine Monitor has noted.
