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As fighting continues in Myanmar’s yearslong civil war even after last month’s devastating earthquake, Kim Aris, the son of the country’s ousted democratic leader, visited the Bay Area to call for humanitarian aid, his mother’s release and freedom for the Burmese people.

Aris, a U.K. citizen who is quick to clarify he is not a politician and has no political ambitions, was greeted at the Oakland airport on Sunday by a group of 20 people who had waited for hours with large banners and several bouquets of flowers.

His mother, Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested in February 2021 after the military seized power from her democratically elected government, sparking mass protests and eventually an armed resistance in Myanmar.

Since then, Aris has only received one letter from his mother, through the British Foreign Office. She will be 80 in June.

“I know very little except she’s getting old, she’s got ongoing health care issues, and she’s in prison where the conditions are diabolical,” he said. “Even though I don’t get involved with politics, I’ve had to step up over the last four years to try and do what I can to help her.

“We just want her free. She wants all the political prisoners free as well, and she wouldn’t accept her freedom before their freedom,” he added.

Aris told NPR last week that he believes his mother is in a prison in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyidaw, which was hit by the magnitude 7.7 earthquake on March 28 that has killed 3,600 people and counting.

“So, we’re very concerned about her well-being, obviously,” he told NPR. “It’s very hard to confirm anything.”

Joseph Ong, who is from Myanmar and has lived in San Francisco for the last 50 years, helped greet Aris at the airport and said he has extended family members who are worried about aftershocks and “were sleeping out in the soccer fields at night and afraid to go back home.”

Khin Thiri Nandar Soe of Pinole, one of the co-organizers for Aris’ visit, was born and raised in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city and closest to the epicenter of the quake.

“It’s extremely difficult for people to have even basic water and necessary medical supplies,” she said. Though she has been in touch with some family, she has yet to reach everyone.

Meanwhile, reports of continued fighting are widespread despite a temporary ceasefire declared by the military government and its armed opponents. The army has been heavily criticized for continuing aerial bombing, according to independent Myanmar media and eyewitnesses, the Associated Press reported.

Khin Thiri Nandar Soe said she’s hoping Aris’ visit will put pressure on Myanmar’s military junta to “stop the bombing of innocent civilians while people are facing a crisis.”

On Monday, a day after speaking to hundreds of Burmese community members in Newark, Aris was in conversation with David Cohen, an expert in human rights at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

He took several questions from audience members, including a few critiquing his mother’s response to accusations of genocide against Rohingya Muslims, whom the Myanmar military massacred by the thousands in what the United Nations called “textbook ethnic cleansing.”

“She was trying to make sure that everybody in Burma had a place, not just the Rohingya,” Aris said.

His discussion at Stanford ranged from regional politics to how it was being on house arrest with his mother (“boring” but somewhat enjoyable to cook together).

Audience members included Bay Area Burmese such as Wai Yan, a student at the College of San Mateo who leads a Burmese Student Association. He asked Aris for advice on how to unify and uplift students here to ensure they do not lose hope.

“I know it seems like Burma has been abandoned by the world now. If you look at the news, often there’s nothing about them, people don’t seem to care,” Aris said. “Just because you don’t see the work they’re doing doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

Lastly, he added, “Please don’t feel like you’re alone.”