This thesis examines international humanitarian organisations' communications regarding aid delivery and operational constraints in the aftermath of the 2025 Myanmar earthquake within an authoritarian environment. The earthquake occurred amid ongoing conflict and political instability, where severe restrictions were imposed on humanitarian access, creating both urgent humanitarian needs and a difficult operational environment. Humanitarian organisations were required to deliver aid under conditions of insecurity and state control, while also balancing public communications about suffering and access constraints without compromising their neutrality or operational legitimacy.

The study employed a comparative qualitative thematic analysis using a deductive coding framework based on the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. These principles provide the conceptual and analytical structure for examining how humanitarian actors framed humanitarian needs and operational barriers in their public communications. The analysis focuses on themes related to representations of suffering, depoliticised language, access restrictions, and references to political responsibility and organisational autonomy.

The thesis is theoretically grounded in dependency theory and authoritarianism theory; these perspectives help explain how humanitarian organisations operate within unequal political structures shaped by donor dependence, state-controlled access, and authoritarian governance. Neutrality is therefore understood not as the absence of politics, but as a strategic and negotiated position within restrictive environments.

The study compares the communication strategies of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), organisations that differ in their operational approaches in neutrality and advocacy. The findings demonstrate that explicit references to authoritarian obstruction or political responsibility were largely absent. Instead, organisations relied on indirect humanitarian language to uphold neutrality. While the ICRC most consistently upheld a strict neutrality mandate, UNICEF acknowledged access restrictions more openly, whereas MSF’s communications were less politically explicit than expected despite its emphasis on “bearing witness.”