Six Myanmar war widows speak softly of their grief as they walk inside the crumbling walls of Mandalay Palace, fresh arrivals in an earthquake-wracked city strained anew by conflict.

“We feel more freedom here,” said one among them, all widows of dead soldiers.

She was evacuated from her hometown, which was “ruined by war”, to the improbable refuge of a military-run quake recovery zone several months after it struck.

The March 28 jolt killed nearly 3,800 people as it flattened swaths of Mandalay — an ancient royal capital hemmed by jungle-clad mountains and the snaking Irrawaddy River.

The 7.7-magnitude tremor dealt an especially heavy blow in a country reeling from civil war since the military seized power in a 2021 coup.

The junta has pledged elections beginning on December 28 and h

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