Published on: 13 November 2024
| On 12 November 2024, ACLED incorporated the source Khit Thit Media covering violence and demonstrations in Myanmar from 2018 to present. The inclusion of this source primarily expands coverage of the Myanmar 2021 coup and subsequent civil war with over 15,000 events and over 13,000 fatalities. |
Key Changes
Update Period and Scope
Myanmar data from 2018 to present, primarily covering the 2021 coup and subsequent civil war.
Publication date
The data improvements were published on 12 November 2024.
Summary of changes
With the inclusion of Khit Thit Media, ACLED added over 15,000 new events, including over 2900 battles, 4100 remote violence events, 1200 violence against civilians events, 5500 demonstrations and 1500 strategic developments. ACLED also updated 400 events with new information. In total, over 13,000 fatalities were added to the dataset.
Khit Thit Media covers violence and demonstrations across all states and its inclusion does not change existing geographic trends and distributions, apart from a relative increase in demonstration events in Sagaing region of about 20% compared to the rest of the country.
Why we are adding this source
Khit Thit Media reports extensively on violence and demonstrations in Myanmar since 2021. By adding this source ACLED is able to provide a more comprehensive coverage of the civil war.
ACLED has done extensive investigations into Khit Thit Media reporting before deciding to incorporate this data. The outlet, along with other independent media, have been accused of spreading disinformation by the military junta1https://www.moi.gov.mm/moi:eng/news/13366 and aligned outlets.2https://myawady.net.mm/content/news-release-denouncement-media-and-organizations-distributing-false-information-about-kinma However, such claims of disinformation have been identified as disinformation itself spread through extensive campaign by the military junta to discredit independent media. ACLED reached out to experts to assess the reliability of Khit Thit Media and found it to be of average quality among local Myanmar outlets – below higher quality media like Myanmar Now but above other independent media like Mizzima.
ACLED further investigated Khit Thit Media by cross-referencing their reports on armed clashes and the resulting fatalities with other local and international media already covered by ACLED. While the reporting style of Khit Thit Media is relatively sensationalist and aligned with the anti-coup movement, ACLED found no structural discrepancies on violent event details relevant to ACLED coding. Observed variations in reported fatalities were limited and within the expected range for conflict reporting – see our Knowledge Base for more on ACLED’s fatality coding and the inherent challenges around fatality reporting in conflicts.
Further information
Consult our Knowledge Base for more on ACLED’s sourcing and coding methodology or stay informed on the local situation in our Myanmar analysis articles.
