It has been months since Naw Eh Wah has had a proper meal. The 15kg of rice she, like others living in the camp, was receiving every four weeks has been cut by more than half that amount.
“We fled our homes because of the violence, and now we are in trouble, almost without food,” she says. Her village, Lay Kay Kaw, 25 miles away, is occupied by the Myanmar military.
“Our struggle is never-ending.” Now she is the volunteer manager of Law Kaw camp for displaced people in Karen state, near the Thai border where more than 600 people, mainly ethnic Karen, live, having moved away from the raids and airstrikes carried out by Myanmar’s military junta.
Myanmar has targeted its ethnic minorities for decades. But the conflict between the army and some of the biggest ethnic minority armed organisations reignited after the 2021 military coup.
Violence has escalated since October according to the UN, who, in a report published in September, said the Myanmar military was increasingly relying on “air and artillery strikes on villages and other populated areas” to fight perceived opponents.
It said concerns around abuses by anti-military groups who have been forming allegiances to fight the junta were “not comparable to the military’s violence in scale, proportion, or scope”.
View image in fullscreenSan San Htay, 18, holds her eight-month old son, Saw San Myint Oo, in Law Kaw IDP camp, Myanmar, in March 2023.
The military has denied carrying out atrocities, saying its operations target terrorists. According to the Karen National Union, the junta has carried out more than 300 airstrikes on civilians in the state over the past two years, leaving thousands homeless.
The few provisions that camp residents receive are from Thai charities- Law Kaw camp is a short walk from the Moei River which divides the two countries. The military have checkpoints between the camp and the nearest city in Myanmar, Myawaddy. “There is no international aid organisation to help us, only local groups who know about us,” says Naw Eh Wah, 50.
There are problems there too, charities have to drop off aid supplies at a central point and it is redistributed by the Thai military. Last year, the NGO Refugees International accused the Thai government of restricting cross-border aid.
Outside the bamboo hut where she has lived for the past 10 months with her four children, Than Than Soe, 42, says: “I have no idea how I will survive with 5kg of rice a month.”
She was five months pregnant in December 2021 when troops invaded Lay Kay Kaw village. She left and headed towards the Moei River. It took almost three weeks to get to the camp, the family dodging airstrikes as they travelled.
“We had to sleep on the ground when we fled. It was traumatic for me since I was pregnant,” she says.
Tens of thousands of people live in camps along both sides of this border. Many have been there since the mid-1980s.
Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention, but the 87,000 people who have lived in nine settlements inside the country for more than two years are registered with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and receive a monthly allowance of 300 baht (about £6) from TBC (the Border Consortium of NGOs) and food, shelter and assistance from other organisations.
View image in fullscreenThan Than Soe and her son. She was five months pregnant when troops invaded her village of Lay Kay Kaw in December 2021.
But those displaced since 2021 and who live in the makeshift settlements along the Moei and Salween Rivers, are unregistered and the total numbers are unrecorded.
A Thai government spokesperson told the Guardian humanitarian areas had been created and assistance given to people fleeing Myanmar. “Relevant authorities have been providing food and other basic necessities” said the spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Banya Khun Aung, deputy secretary of the Karenni State Interim Executive Council, an anti-junta group, says the lack of food has reached crisis levels. “We are now short of food and supplies. Help from the international aid agencies is less than expected,” he says.
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In May and June, Myanmar’s military carried out 463 airstrikes in Karenni, the state which borders Mae Hong Son province in Thailand.
More than half of Karenni’s population of 400,000 have been displaced since 2021, according to the state’s interim executive council and are living in about 200 camps deep in the forest along the Salween River.
View image in fullscreenAn IDP camp in Karen state next to the Moei River bordering Thailand. An unknown number of people displaced from Myanmar in 2021 now live in camps along the border.
“Our state is already so poor that we don’t have enough rice,” says Banya Khun Aung. “The military didn’t allow us to carry rice from other areas. And goods are getting more expensive. We have so many challenges in helping our community.”
The military has cut off transportation routes, confiscated supplies and arrested workers attempting to distribute aid, meaning goods for people in the border areas have to come via Thailand, which is costly.
The displacement camps are also not safe from attack. In July, the military sent two fighter jets to bomb Daw Noe Ku IDP camp, one of Karenni’s largest camps.
Naw See, 25, was living there. Although military drones would hover above the camp at night, she didn’t expect it to be bombed. “They bombed us at midnight when everyone was asleep,” she says.
“It was emotionally painful. We have done nothing wrong. I want people to sympathise with us and end such cruel action.”
Myanmar: at least 29 people killed in attack on camp for displaced peopleRead more
Some 5,000 people fled the camp that night, crossing into Thailand and establishing a new camp deep in the jungle of Mae Hong Song province. Bamboo and plastic shelters are camouflaged by giant trees. Mud from heavy rain covers the ground, and it is chilly and damp. The refugees have little access to the outside world and they eat rice only when they can get it.
“I am scared,” says Naw See, “that our children will soon be starving.”
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