THE HIDDEN WAR: SKY GO INSIDE MYANMAAR FOR NEW DOCUMENTARY
In a series of special reports on Sky News this week, Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay will take audiences inside Myanmar, a country torn apart by a civil war that has seen thousands of civilians killed by the military regime who seized power two years ago.
Very little is known about what’s actually happening in Myanmar, but Ramsay and his team have spent a month undercover in the country, living in the jungle with the resistance fighters, volunteers, and medics fighting the government.
Sky News were shown positions where the bodies of dead Myanmar army soldiers still lie, witnessed the targeting of civilians with air strikes and artillery and met some of the thousands of internally displaced people.
The team also embedded in a secret frontline hospital built into the Myanmar jungle, where they witnessed a "conveyor belt of horror" as the medical staff tried to save the lives of severely injured civilians and resistance fighters.
Stuart Ramsay, Sky’s Chief Correspondent and winner of the Royal Television Society’s TV Journalist of the Year, said: "I witnessed brain surgery, complex amputations, and lifesaving operations that simply defied the conditions in which the volunteer staff were working in. They are achieving miracles, almost hourly, every day, all the while knowing that the Myanmar regime is hunting them down and trying to destroy the hospital."
Jonathan Levy, Managing Director and Executive Editor at Sky News said: “Stuart and the team’s reporting from Myanmar takes audiences inside this brutal and unseen war. The visceral footage gives a rare view of the scale of violence and is a fine example of why Sky News continues to invest in eyewitness journalism and sending our people to where a story is unfolding.”
Ramsay added: "I knew this was going to be different to many wars that I have covered, not least because it's taking place in a jungle, but I didn't expect it to be so violent, volatile, and affecting so many civilians across the country".
The team travelled in small convoys through government army lines using tracks and backroads, never more than a few kilometres from their forces at any time. They worked across three states gathering evidence of a very active war: Shan State, Karenni (Kayah) State, and Karen (Kayin) State.
In some states of Myanmar almost everyone is displaced by the ongoing fighting. Many of those the team spoke to draw parallels with the help to Ukraine, and most have given up hope that help will come.
"They always say that they are concerned, they’re deeply concerned, they’re strongly deeply concerned, they use a lot of grammar words but not action, so yeah, we realise that we have to do it ourselves", one of the commanders leading the fight against the regime told Ramsay.
Inside Myanmar: The Hidden War, 9pm, Tuesday 18th July on Sky News. A one-hour special programme with exclusive video footage from inside a country in the midst of a civil war that is being fought out of sight from the rest of the world. Hosted by Anna Botting with Sky’s Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay in the studio to discuss his month undercover in the jungle.
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