At a government-run hospital in Bago, Myanmar's southernmost city, Pann Pann began her first job in maintaining medical records in 2019. She wanted to run the hospital's records department.
Four years later, however, the 25-year-old is still a waitress in Bangkok, her dreams having been put on hold as a brutal military regime continues to rule her nation.
I would never have left, she claims, if it weren't for the coup. "In Myanmar, I wished to establish my life. However, there is no longer a safe place in my nation. ".
Pann Pann graduated from college as Myanmar was still undergoing a rare, 50-year-long period of political freedom. As tourists arrived and foreign investment poured in, the economy, ravaged by decades of instability, began to recover.
February 2021 followed. A democratically elected leader named Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into custody by the army, setting off massive anti-coup demonstrations that sparked a bloody civil war and wrecked the country's economy.
Young people's resistance was prominent in the early stages of the post-coup movement, but this optimism soon faded. For individuals like Pann Pann, who had actively participated in the civil disobedience movement—a widespread strike against military rule led by public sector workers—the risks of remaining in Myanmar increased.
The UN estimates that since the coup, 70,000 people have left the nation. Young people who are discouraged and searching for employment to support their families have sparked the exodus. The International Labour Organization estimates that there were 1.1 million fewer Burmese workers in the first half of 2022 than there were in the corresponding period of 2020.
Ethnic minorities in the nation had been fleeing persecution for many years. The army was subsequently charged with committing genocide against the Muslim community, and thousands of Rohingya joined them. Dissidents, activists, and even regular Burmese who were tired of the civil war wanted out after the coup.
It was not an easy choice for Pann Pann to leave Myanmar.
She had been eluding the police for months by hopping from one relative's home to another. She stayed in Bago despite the junta killing a number of her friends. Finally, a friend in the US contributed funds to purchase her one-way flight to Chiang Mai.
She relocated to Bangkok after failing to find employment there. Within the first year, she worked seven under-the-table jobs, including babysitting, housecleaning, waiting tables, and construction. Pann Pann is still lacking a work permit.
She claims that there is, nonetheless, a glimmer of stability. With her current monthly income of 12,000 baht (£280; $350), she can pay the rent for a modest room nearby.
Because I don't speak the local language and my English isn't very good, life in Thailand is challenging. However, it is safer. I still can't stay here legally.
Her anxiety about returning home stems from her perception that her name is on a "black list.". She therefore doesn't know when she will next see her family.
But I think you made the right choice, she adds. Despite the fact that it is more comfortable here, I didn't travel to Thailand. I had no idea what Thailand was like. However, while I was in Myanmar, all I could think about was getting out of there. ".
Fear is another factor that drove Augustine Thang to cross the border by bicycle in January of last year with his wife and two young children from Chin state in Myanmar to Mizoram in India.
Although he continues to hope for the chance to return, he never did.
When the coup took place, the 34-year-old was serving as the department of social welfare's deputy manager in the Chin state. A week later, he joined the movement for civil disobedience.
The pressure of having to support his family as well as the fear of army retaliation proved to be too much.
"It was a hard choice to make. We value our lives, so I made the decision to leave even though I love my country, my village, and want to work for my people.
Thang now works on occasion in the building industry.
"I aspired to lead my [former] department and concentrate on child and youth development. I'm currently unemployed. Friends who I help give me a portion of their rewards. This isn't enough, he said.
"I have no choice but to move to [Mizoram], which is not our home. ".
The ability to live peacefully, fish at sea, and eat fresh fish are some of the things Thang misses most about Myanmar. He nevertheless holds out hope that, with the help of international organizations like the UN, his nation will "regain democracy" in the future.
Not all migrants who left Myanmar did so out of terror. Some people, such as Julia Khine, a Burmese engineering student in Hong Kong, left to pursue their education. She is less inclined to go back after seeing what has happened to her nation, though.
The 21-year-old who left Myanmar in August 2022 says, "I hope to contribute to my country and people, but from outside Myanmar. She claims that after graduating, she plans to travel the globe "to speak about the injustice that is happening in Myanmar.".
She claims that it has been uncomfortable to lead a relatively peaceful life while her friends and family back home deal daily with violence and instability.
Because they cannot understand my worries, she says it has been difficult to develop close friendships in Hong Kong. "I was horrified by the recent air strikes [in Myanmar], but I felt they wouldn't understand, so I just had to act like nothing was happening," she said. ".
In the village in the northwest, the airstrike to which she is alluding killed more than 100 people.
For fear of coming across as insensitive, she also avoids using social media and is reticent to discuss personal details about her life with those back home.
She added that parents of her friends who were killed by the army would be especially "triggered" if they saw that she was succeeding. .
Pann Pann, meanwhile, misses her loved ones and church acquaintances dearly. But she keeps telling herself that she is the lucky one already.
"A lot of my friends are still running away and changing addresses. Some have been murdered, she claims. "I always have to remind myself that their lives are harder than mine, so I have to be brave.
. "
