Amnesty International's January 2026 report reveals how Myanmar's military junta imports jet fuel for deadly airstrikes through "ghost ships" with suspected Iranian ties, bypassing international sanctions in a blatant violation of human rights norms. This shadowy supply chain has fueled 2025's deadliest year for aerial bombings since the 2021 coup, killing hundreds of civilians and demanding urgent state policy reforms globally.
The Shadowy Fuel Pipeline
Myanmar's air force imported at least 109,604 metric tons of aviation fuel in 2025—a 69% increase from 2024 and the highest volume since the February 2021 coup—according to data from the Myanmar Port Authority analyzed by Amnesty researchers. These shipments arrive via ghost ships like HUITONG 78 (renamed LS URANUS), YONG SHENG 56 (now LS MERCURY), REEF (formerly BALTIC HORIZON), and NOBLE (previously ASTRA), which disable their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders, spoof locations, switch flags and names, and perform covert ship-to-ship transfers in murky international waters.
Amnesty tracked nine such deliveries from mid-2024 to late 2025, using satellite imagery and Kpler shipping data, with clear evidence pointing to Iranian ports like Bandar Abbas, where the REEF was spotted in September 2025 despite falsified AIS signals placing it hundreds of kilometers away near Kuwait or the UAE.
This evasion mirrors tactics employed by sanctioned states like Russia, Iran, and North Korea, transforming Myanmar's fuel imports into a rogue operation five years after the coup that ousted the elected government. Prior investigations, such as Amnesty's 2022 "Deadly Cargo" report co-authored with Justice for Myanmar, exposed roles played by Singapore and Thailand-based firms, but post-2023 sanctions shifted the trade to layered resales through Vietnam storage hubs and now these elusive ghost fleets.
Over 113,000 metric tons have entered Myanmar since 2021, directly powering an escalated air campaign that has devastated civilian areas and underscored failures in global state policy to enforce aviation fuel restrictions.
Civilian Atrocities and Human Rights Crisis
The jet fuel sustains relentless airstrikes on displacement camps, resistance positions, and villages, making 2025 the bloodiest year for aerial attacks, with hundreds of civilians confirmed dead. A single December 2025 bombing in Sagaing Region killed over 100 people, including more than 40 children, as documented by monitors like Open Arms and local resistance networks.
This human rights catastrophe has displaced thousands more in regions like Sagaing, where pro-democracy forces challenge junta control, amplifying calls for international intervention to halt the bloodshed.
"These ghost ships are lifeline for junta airstrikes slaughtering civilians; states must tighten sanctions on fuel networks,"
warned Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard, highlighting how each shipment translates to bombs raining on innocents.[prior context] In the same vein, "Five years after the coup, our analysis shows that the Myanmar junta continues to evade sanctions and find new ways to import the jet fuel it uses to bomb its own civilians – with 2025 being the deadliest year on record for aerial attacks since the junta takeover in 2021," emphasized Montse Ferrer, Amnesty’s Regional Research Director, adding,
"As aviation fuel shipments into the country increase despite sanctions and the well-documented surge in aerial attacks against civilians, the international community must do more to stop companies and governments facilitating a supply chain that has increasingly gone rogue. Every day of inaction will cost more lives."
Resistance leaders have labeled this "genocidal logistics," urging seizures of implicated vessels, while the junta dismisses strikes as "defensive actions" against "terrorists."
Iran's Suspected Sanctions Role
Evidence strongly implicates Iran-linked entities in rerouting fuel from Russian and Middle Eastern sources through UAE-based traders, with Kpler data assuming Iranian origins for cargoes on two U.S.-sanctioned vessels. Satellite images from Amnesty’s Evidence Lab captured the REEF loitering in unnatural "box-shaped" patterns 750 km from Bandar Abbas, confirming STS handoffs likely at UAE’s Fujairah Offshore Anchorage Area after Iranian loading.
Around 60% of Myanmar's fuel historically transships via lax oversight ports like Singapore, enabling this opacity that shields Tehran while sustaining a pariah regime.
Iran's pattern of covert fuel exports—previously to places like Russia—now extends to Myanmar, exploiting gaps in state policy enforcement and bolstering an anti-Western ally amid its own isolation. This nexus not only prolongs the junta's air superiority but erodes global human rights standards by normalizing sanctions busting in conflict zones.
Global Reactions and Enforcement Failures
Western powers have responded with vows of secondary sanctions, targeting enablers in the supply chain, while demanding blocks on complicit ports in Singapore, Vietnam, and the UAE.[prior context] The U.S. State Department pledged action, echoed by the UK and EU, yet 2025 imports hit record highs despite 2023 measures, exposing weak state policy implementation.[prior context] Social media amplified the alarm, with Amnesty USA stating on X,
"The Myanmar military relies on a ghost fleet to import jet fuel used in deadly air strikes on civilians, evidence points to Iran links,"
and outlets like Khaosod English noting Iran-linked vessels suspected in Myanmar fuel trade.
Amnesty calls for outright aviation fuel bans, corporate withdrawals, and stricter AIS monitoring to dismantle the network, arguing that current state policy falls short against adaptive rogue tactics. Without these steps, the human rights toll mounts daily, as each ghost ship delivery empowers atrocities.
Implications for Myanmar's Civil War
This fuel lifeline maintains junta dominance in the skies, countering territorial losses to the National Unity Government (NUG) and People's Defense Forces (PDF), even as ground advances favor resistance. The war, now in its fifth year, has seen airstrikes as the junta's key weapon, fueling displacement and deaths that demand reevaluation of state policy toward arms embargoes and fuel controls Iran's involvement signals a broader axis of sanctioned states sharing evasion playbooks, much like Russia's Ukraine strategies, potentially emboldening others from North Korea to Venezuela.
China provides tacit arms support contrasting overt denials, while the ghost fleet underscores how economic opacity sustains human rights abusers. For Myanmar's people, every ton of jet fuel equates to bombed schools and camps, eroding faith in international state policy.
Pathways to Disruption
Disrupting this pipeline requires mandatory AIS enforcement, sanctions on STS facilitators and spoofing operators, and audits of high-risk ports like Fujairah. Commodity trackers like Kpler must gain better data access, with resistance intelligence shared to identify more vessels. Targeted asset freezes on fleet owners, coupled with aviation fuel embargoes, could ground the air force swiftly.
As Montse Ferrer cautioned,
"Every day of inaction will cost more lives,"
pressing states to align policy with human rights imperatives. Choking this supply tips the balance toward democracy, isolating the junta fully amid 2025's horrors and restoring accountability.