The "Thingyan" festival typically celebrates Myanmar's new year with water-splashing rituals symbolising cleansing and renewal, but the central cities of Mandalay and Sagaing lie devastated from the 7.7-magnitude quake.
Two weeks on from the disaster which killed more than 3,600, hundreds are still living in tent encampments peppered among pancaked apartment blocks, razed tea shops and demolished hotels.
Early on Sunday families were buying clay pots and plant sprigs customarily placed inside homes to welcome the new year -- even though some had nowhere to put them.
"My heart is heavy. Our neighbourhood used to come together to celebrate Thingyan but we cannot do it this year," said 55-year-old Ma Phyu, camping with nine family members north of Mandalay's quake-damaged Royal Palace.
Her grandchildren usually pester her to buy them squirt guns, but this year she has nothing to offer.
"I don't see any way that they can be happy," Ma Phyu said.
More than 5,200 buildings were destroyed in the March 28 quake according to official figures, leaving more than two million people in need, the UN says.
Many survivors in Mandalay and the neighbouring city of Sagaing still lack working latrines and need to queue for drinking water, while the weather forecast for heavy rains has them fretting over their makeshift homes.
Since the quake two weeks ago temperatures have also soared to a parching 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) while at night tent-dwellers are needled by mosquitos before rising at dawn to line up for aid.
A fresh 5.5-magnitude aftershock hit Mandalay Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through the city as buildings were evacuated.
"I don't want to stay like this," wept 65-year-old Mar Tin, who was camped among broken concrete and twisted steel.
She said she usually spends Thingyan at a Buddhist meditation centre but this year it was shut.
"I don't have the strength to be happy. How could I be strong in such a situation?" she said.
- Unhappy new year -
The ruling military junta has commanded for the five-day festival -- usually Myanmar's most raucous holiday -- to have no music or dance.
AFP reporters in Mandalay heard no music and saw only a handful of children playing with water pistols.
"I wish to see my children splashing water and running around like I did when I was a child," said Aye Aye Myint, 47, who was camped with her three children on an open market ground.
"Now we have been split from our friends and relatives."
The UN has issued an emergency plea for $275 million, following US President Donald Trump's evisceration of Washington's aid budget which has already hobbled some UN operations in Myanmar.
The World Food Programme says it is being forced to cut off one million people from vital aid in Myanmar this month because donations have dried up.
Myanmar has been riven by a civil war following a 2021 coup which spurred mass poverty and displacement even before the quake.
Despite an announced ceasefire, monitors say Myanmar's military has continued air strikes, while the junta has accused anti-coup guerillas and ethnic armed groups of maintaining their offensives.
"At a moment when the sole focus should be on ensuring humanitarian aid gets to disaster zones, the military is instead launching attacks," said UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani in a statement this week.
UN seeks $275 million in aid for Myanmar quake survivors
United Nations, United States (AFP) April 11, 2025 -
The United Nations launched an appeal on Friday for $275 million in donations urgently needed to aid more than one million people affected by the recent magnitude 7.7 earthquake that devastated Myanmar.
The new appeal report warns that only around five percent has been funded of an estimated $1.1 billion needed for the previous humanitarian aid plan for 5.5 million people.
"With new and increasing needs, additional resources are urgently required," the report said.
The new appeal would target the most vulnerable 1.1 million people, with an emphasis on women and girls "who face higher risks of gender-based violence, food insecurity and lack of access to reproductive health," it added.
According to the UN, more than 6.3 million people are in urgent need of assistance in the areas hardest hit by the magnitude 7.7 earthquake on March 28, which killed more than 3,600 people.
Child rights violations in Myanmar surge since coup: UN
United Nations, United States (AFP) April 11, 2025 -
UN chief Antonio Guterres, in a report released Friday, denounced a dramatic surge in the abuse of children's rights in Myanmar since the country's 2021 coup, particularly through forced recruitment by the military.
The report, which covers the period from July 2020 to the end of 2023, confirmed over 5,140 "grave violations" committed against more than 4,000 children, some as young as three months old.
The figures mark a 400 percent increase over the previous period of September 2018 to June 2020, with a sharp rise since the military overthrow of the government in February 2021 and the subsequent resumption of fighting between the army and various armed ethnic groups.
The report attributed the vast majority of the abuses to Myanmar armed forces and affiliated groups.
"I am deeply alarmed by the surge in grave violations against children and the multiplication in the number of armed actors," Secretary-General Guterres said in the report.
"I am appalled by the scale of recruitment and use and by the surge in the killing and maiming of children, notably as a result of the widespread use of indiscriminate air strikes and firearms, explosive ordnance, in particular landmines, and the rise in attacks on schools and on hospitals by all parties to the conflict, in particular by the Myanmar armed forces," he added.
Guterres also called on all parties "to release all children from their ranks."
Cases of child recruitment accounted for about 40 percent of the violations, the report stated, with the phenomenon expanding to all states and regions following the coup.
The number of abductions of children also sharply increased, by nearly 3,000 percent, with many of those abducted being forced to undertake military training.
The report found that minors were also used to recruit other children, gather information or extort money, and serve as human shields for military forces.
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