Yangon feels, on the surface, like a normal, bustling city. In downtown areas, commuters stream past roadside sellers and diners perch beneath parasols. Packed buses and cars chug along the roads. At sunset, young people stop to pose for photos opposite the famous Sule pagoda, as it gleams against a pink-blue sky.<\/p>\n
But almost five years on from the military seized power in a coup<\/a>, ousting and imprisoning then de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, life for local people feels anything but stable. Myanmar\u2019s military rulers are in the process of holding the first elections since before the coup, a vote that the junta has touted as a return to democracy and stability. The UN and western governments have called the process, which will be held in three phases ending on 25 January, a sham.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are always living in fear,\u201d says a commuter, stopping briefly to speak. \u201c[Before the coup] we had such hope for the future. We were not at all afraid of our government. Now all that has changed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot speak our voices to others freely,\u201d she adds. Like everyone interviewed on the streets of Yangon, she didn\u2019t want to give her name, or speak for long.<\/p>\n Two women pictured at Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Photograph: Lauren DeCicca\/Getty Images<\/p>\n After the coup on 1 February 2021, these streets were packed with protesters demanding the return of democracy. Hundreds of thousands rallied<\/a> across the country \u2013 until the military crushed protests with deadly force.<\/p>\n More than 400 people were killed in the streets<\/a> by the end of March. Tens of thousands have been arrested since. Many fled to rural areas to form a patchwork of groups that make up an anti-junta resistance, at times fighting with help from more experienced ethnic armed groups that have long demanded greater autonomy. By late 2023 war had spread across two-thirds of the country.<\/p>\n Yangon is detached from the fierce conflict that is raging elsewhere in the country, where military air and drone strikes happen daily. Attacks have repeatedly been condemned as indiscriminate.<\/p>\n Life in the city is fraught with anxiety, though. \u201cYangon isn\u2019t like the old Yangon any more,\u201d says an online influencer, who spoke under the pseudonym Hnin Sandar. \u201cYangon isn\u2019t a happy place like before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy friends remind me, don\u2019t talk about politics even in a taxi or on the bus because they are listening,\u201d she adds. It is safer to keep your head down, and never to speak your mind, even about something non-political, she says: \u201cI feel like I\u2019m living in jail.\u201d <\/p>\n Images of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country\u2019s most loved politician, which were once seen in shops, on the streets and government offices, have been removed. Generators sit on the sides of pavements, a reminder of how businesses have been forced to adapt, at great expense, to worsening power cuts.<\/p>\n At night-time, the streets fall silent. Some young people stay until the early hours in bars and clubs that have been flooded with drugs, looking for a temporary escape from the country\u2019s political turmoil. Most remain at home, terrified they could be arrested or taken by the authorities, and forced to serve the military in the country\u2019s brutal civil war.<\/p>\n A vendor arranges newspapers reporting on the general election in Yangon. Photograph: Nhac Nguyen\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Almost everyone knows of someone who has been snatched on the street. Aung Moe*, a Yangon resident, says his friend disappeared after being pulled into a passing taxi. \u201c[They] dragged him inside the car, put a blindfold on him and they took his phone, and made him call his family and ask for a ransom,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n The family were unable to pay the demand of USD$1,200. No one has heard from him since.<\/p>\n