‘My first time holding a gun’: from Myanmar student to revolutionary soldier – a cartoon

JC

Friday, 04 Feb 2022

# South and central Asia

Faced with increasing state violence, young people across Myanmar are learning to fight. This is one young woman’s story

Read more in our Reporting Myanmar series

In the year since the 1 February coup, young people across Myanmar have risked their lives to resist military rule.

At least 295 young people aged 18-25 have been killed in the military’s suppression of the pro-democracy movement. More than 1,000 have been arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In response, thousands have left their homes and families to train as revolutionary fighters.

The Guardian spoke to one 24-year-old woman who has taken up arms with the country’s first all-female revolutionary group. This is her story.

A comic about a young woman in Myanmar, who after the military coup joins an armed revolutionary group

JC is a young artist and illustrator from Myanmar’s ethnic Karen community. She was born in Myanmar and raised on the Thai-Myanmar border

Additional editing by Emily Fishbein

JC

Friday, 04 Feb 2022

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Kicking back at the regime: artists open another front in Myanmar war

With the military increasing its use of informants, rappers and artists must keep their identities secret, even from one another

Emily Fishbein

08, Feb, 2022 @10:30 AM

Ready for war: my journey from peaceful poet to revolutionary soldier

Formerly an anti-war poet, Maung Saungkha has endured a harsh training regime to prepare for armed struggle against the military junta

Maung Saungkha

09, Feb, 2022 @10:30 AM

Revolutionary roads: how the army tried to crush Yangon’s most anti-coup district

The Hlaing Thayar district is at the centre of Myanmar’s protests, but brutal crackdowns and the collapse of the local garment industry have taken their toll

Nway in Yangon

06, Feb, 2022 @9:30 AM

I photographed Myanmar’s protesters one day – and their funerals the next

Photojournalist Moe documented the military’s terrifying and brutal attacks on protests in Mandalay, until even carrying his camera became too risky

Moe, as told to Emily Fishbein

01, Feb, 2022 @6:45 AM

Mothers of the Myanmar revolution: ‘I worry about whether he has warm clothes’

Spurred on by military atrocities, young people are turning to armed struggle against the regime – leaving supportive but fearful families behind

Nu Nu Lusan and Emily Fishbein

04, Feb, 2022 @8:00 AM

‘We’ll keep reporting, whatever the risk from the junta,’ say Myanmar’s journalists

To avoid arrest, the staff of the 74 Media left their home city, only to face shellfire in their border refuge. The editor describes the risks faced by his media outlet

John Padang

02, Feb, 2022 @6:45 AM

Myanmar’s UN envoy under fire for proposing ‘power share’ with military

Pro-democracy groups condemn Noeleen Heyzer’s comments in a TV interview, and maintain the junta is losing its grip

Vaphual and Rebecca Ratcliffe

03, Feb, 2022 @2:29 PM

Teachers on the run: striking public sector workers hunted by Myanmar’s military

Protests against the coup mean hospitals and schools are on the brink of collapse, while workers have left their homes to avoid arrest and interrogation

Flora Lian

01, Feb, 2022 @3:38 PM

Myanmar military junta arrests prominent trade union leader

Daw Myo Aye, labour organiser and a leader of civil disobedience protests, dragged from office by army

Sarah Johnson

19, Apr, 2021 @1:10 PM

Myanmar’s coup: a year under military rule in numbers

With more than 1,400 civilians dead, thousands displaced and an economy on the brink of collapse, Myanmar is in crisis

Andrew Nachemson and Emily Fishbein

01, Feb, 2022 @11:00 AM