WorldView-funded The Jungle Surgeon of Myanmar is now available on Al Jazeera Witness.
The film follows Nyunt Win, a surgeon and medical trainer working with a mobile clinic in the East Burma jungle. He is also a former soldier of the Karen National Liberation Army. Nyunt Win’s patients are the displaced Karen people who as well as suffering the effects of years of civil war are without any healthcare whatsoever.
With moves towards political reform and international aid going directly to the government under the guise of development projects, there is an increase in resource exploitation, human rights abuses and displacement of ethnic populations. The plight of Nyunt Win’s patients seems to be more acute than ever.
Director Gigi Berardi says the provision of basic health care is not only for humanitarian purposes, it also serves as a political goal: ‘The Jungle Surgeon of Myanmar exposes what life is like in the remote areas of Myanmar. It shows this marginalised community’s fight for survival and thoughts on longterm peace, providing an alternative perspective on the ceasefire’.
Read more about the project and watch the film now on Al Jazeera