MANDALAY, Myanmar: Six Myanmar war widows speak softly of their grief as they walk inside the crumbling walls of Mandalay Palace, fresh arrivals in an earthquake-wracked city strained anew by conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel more freedom here,\u201d said one among them, all widows of dead soldiers.<\/p>\n
She was evacuated from her hometown, which was \u201cruined by war,\u201d to the improbable refuge of a military-run quake recovery zone several months after it struck.<\/p>\n
The March 28 jolt killed nearly 3,800 people as it flattened swaths of Mandalay \u2013 an ancient royal capital hemmed by jungle-clad mountains and the snaking Irrawaddy River.<\/p>\n
The 7.7-magnitude tremor dealt an especially heavy blow in a country reeling from civil war since the military seized power in a 2021 coup.<\/p>\n
The junta has pledged elections beginning on December 28 and has touted them as a path to peace with its myriad adversaries \u2013 from ragtag pro-democracy partisans to semi-professional ethnic minority armies.<\/p>\n
However, a UN expert has dismissed the vote as a \u201cfraud\u201d and rebels have declared they will block it.<\/p>\n
The military is besieging their enclaves with new offensives, bidding to expand the poll\u2019s reach into regions it does not currently control.<\/p>\n
Fighter jets and helicopters howl over Mandalay\u2019s quake-dented skyline, flying toward front lines while newly displaced civilians arrive daily, crowding shelters in a city where much was razed.<\/p>\n
Draped over the tarpaulin-wrapped palace parapet, a new red military banner urges: \u201cCo-operate and crush all those harming the union.\u201d<\/p>\n
The widows, who AFP is not identifying for security reasons, have been left in mourning and displaced in a strange and wounded place.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our husbands fell in battle right before our eyes. Some fell far away,\u201d said one, now raising three children alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no idea about politics,\u201d she said. \u201cI do not think it is good that Myanmar people fight each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANDALAY, Myanmar: Six Myanmar war widows speak softly of their grief as they walk inside the crumbling walls of Mandalay Palace, fresh arrivals in an earthquake-wracked city strained anew by conflict. \u201cWe feel more freedom here,\u201d said one among them, all widows of dead soldiers. She was evacuated from her hometown, which was \u201cruined by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":87339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87341,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87312\/revisions\/87341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}