Baby Born During Mother’s Flight From Conflict Gets a Name Befitting His Times

18 Jan 2023

Written By Win Nyunt

It is the wish of many pregnant women to have their husband or other close family members by their side when they give birth. But no one was around when Ma Than Than Nu, 29, delivered her baby. And it was not a hospital or healthcare facility of any kind where she delivered her baby. And she went into labour alone.

It was 3 a.m. and Kywhtoe Village was in near-total darkness as its residents slept. Ma Than Than Nu was not asleep, however. Outside the village monastery, she was struggling to deliver her baby.

As she did not want to give birth inside the monastery, a sacred place to Buddhists, Ma Than Than Nu instead found herself on the concrete ground to the west of the building, groaning with pain, as she delivered her baby.

Displaced

Ma Than Than Nu lived in Ngatgyikyun Village, Ponnagyun Township. She was pregnant last year as regional military tensions were growing between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA).

The AA ambushed a junta food convoy between Padaetha and Hsininngyi villages on the Yangon-Sittwe road in Ponnagyun Township on November 10, and junta forces in response unleashed a heavy barrage of mortar shells as junta aircraft attacked from the air, injuring two residents of neighbouring Eaidin village.

Local residents from nearby villages including Ngatgyikyun spent that day in fear, in bomb shelters if they had them.

The following day, Ma Than Than Nu’s husband Ko Maung Myint Naing fled their home due to reports that junta soldiers were arresting young and middle-aged men. Shortly thereafter, artillery shells landed near Ngatgyikyun Village, prompting residents to flee.

Ma Than Than Nu had no time to contact her husband. Holding the hands of her 6-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, she fled the village together with their neighbours.

They were heading to Kywhtoe Village, a walk of about two hours for an able-bodied adult. But Ma Than Than Nu was heavily pregnant and was also slowed down by her two children, so they fell behind the fleeing group and had to stop to sleep on their way to Kywhtoe.

“We could not make it in a single day. We had to sleep in a hut on the way. We only arrived the following day,” she said.

The three arrived in Kywhtoe at around 10 a.m on November 12, and took shelter at the village monastery. Myanmar military air and artillery strikes continued that day.

The following day, news of junta troops approaching Tankhoe Village, which is about 30 minutes from Kywhtoe on foot, forced the residents of both villages to flee. But this time, an increasingly pregnant Ma Than Than Nu could not.

Myanmar junta troops were deployed in Tankhoe and around 20 junta soldiers arrived in Kywhtoe at noon that day. Only the abbot of the Kywehtoe Village monastery, a 70-year-old monk, 95-year-old layman U Saw Tha Aung and Ma Than Than Nu’s group of three remained in the village.

“The soldiers asked questions, and asked where the villagers had gone,” Ma Than Than Nu recounted.

The regime troops proceeded to loot foodstuffs from some homes in the village before departing for Tankhoe Village.

In the days and weeks surrounding Ma Than Than Nu’s ordeal, some 7,000 residents from several villages in Ponnagyun Township fled their homes due to junta raids, artillery fire and airstrikes.

A Child Is Born

Together with her 1-year-old son Maung Yan Naing Chay and 6-year-old daughter Ma Khaing Thazin Oo, Ma Than Than Nu fell asleep at the Kywehtoe Village monastery on the night of November 13. It was past midnight when, in the early hours of November 14, Ma Than Than Nu told U Saw Tha Aung that she was beginning to feel pain, which she attributed to her pregnancy. The nonagenarian was unable to do anything but offer words of encouragement.

“That uncle [U Saw Tha Aung] encouraged me to keep calm and to face my difficulties. I was afraid that there was no one around me, but he encouraged me not to be afraid,” she said.

Ma Than Than Nu did not want to give birth in the monastery, so she slowly walked behind the monastery and gave birth by herself, in a semi-sheltered open space. She lost consciousness after giving birth, with the baby still attached to the placenta via the umbilical cord. U Saw Tha Aung came and covered her with a blanket.

The monk at the monastery phoned another monk at the monastery in Kanchaung Village, where Ma Than Than Nu’s mother-in-law was residing. Ma Than Than Nu’s mother-in-law went to Kywhtoe Village immediately upon receiving a phone call from the second monk, who relayed the information to her.  

Her mother-in-law arrived at the Kywhtoe Village monastery at around 7 a.m. on November 14.

“I was unconscious for four hours after giving birth. I didn’t know my baby was crying anymore. I was able to cut my baby’s umbilical cord only when my mother-in-law arrived at the monastery,” she added.

Ko Maung Myint Naing and Ma Than Than Nu already had four children, ranging in age from one to 15 years old, when they welcomed their newborn into the world. (Maung Kyaw Myint Naing, her eldest son, was working in downtown Ponnagyun when his mother fled Ngatgyikyun Village, and her 10-year-old son lives with his grandmother in Kanchaung Village.)

Ma Than Than Nu is back to living in Ngatgyikyun Village, and Ko Maung Myint Naing has been reunited with his wife and now four children.

Their infant son, born amid conflict while his mother fled soldiers of the Myanmar regime, was named Sit Naing Aung. Inspired by his parents’ yearning for the AA to triumph over its battlefield foe, Sit Naing Aung means “hoped-for military victory” — a name befitting the boy’s harrowing origin story.