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[Clicking on the sample photos shown in the introduction below will take you to the description of that photo. Clicking on a thumbnail above a photo description will provide an enlargement of the photo. It is recommended that you view this set with your web browser window maximised.]
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For all of the reasons shown in the other sections of this report, more and more villagers are fleeing the SPDC-controlled villages, relocation sites, and SPDC-destroyed villages. Most of them only leave their villages when there is no other way to survive. Having lived their entire lives as subsistence farmers, they cannot bear the thought of being far from their land, so they usually begin by fleeing to the forests near their village or to their farmfield huts. When SPDC patrols hunt them out there, they flee further into the hills, but still try to keep within reach of their fields so that they can plant crops. They try to plant rice in a small part of their fields, sometimes in several different places in case of discovery. To get food and seed grain they make secret trips back to the rice storage barns hidden in the forest around their village, and add to this by foraging for vegetables in the forest. Some are lucky enough to still have some chickens with them, but larger livestock such as pigs or cattle is rare. Most of them have had to flee several times with only their children and whatever else they could carry on their backs.
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They stay in small groups of a few families in order to minimise the chance of detection, and they must always be ready to flee again, listening for news from other displaced people or KNLA units about the movements of the SPDC columns which are sent to hunt them out. Whenever a column comes near them they must flee further into the hills, but many are still surprised by the columns on the pathways or in their fields and shot on sight (see the photos in the "Shootings and Killings" section above). They also have to fear the landmines being laid heavily by all sides in the conflict. The SPDC deliberately mines pathways known to be used by displaced villagers, their abandoned villages and their crop fields. At least half of the victims of the SPDC, KNLA and DKBA mines are villagers, particularly the internally displaced, and a large proportion of them bleed to death before they can be carried to any medical help (see the photos in the "Landmines" section below).
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Yet despite all of these risks, most of the villagers prefer to continue struggling to survive on their own as internally displaced people, near their land and their home villages, holding on to a hope of being able to go home rather than fleeing across the border into Thailand. The minority who do eventually choose the difficult and dangerous trip to Thailand usually do so only after every attempt to stay near their land and produce food to survive has been thwarted by SPDC troops. There are several hundred thousand internally displaced villagers in Karen State alone. In Toungoo District far to the north, the SPDC has forcibly relocated many of the hill villages to garrisoned "peace villages", where everyone is used as forced labour extending the military road network into the district and as porters, but many people of both "peace villages" and hill villages have fled into hiding in the hills (see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages", KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/00). Just to the south in northern Papun District and eastern Nyaunglebin District, the SPDC has systematically destroyed 200 hill villages since 1997, forcing an estimated 50,000 people to flee into the forests where they still remain in hiding, and where 40 SPDC Battalions are now trying to flush them out (see "Wholesale Destruction" [KHRG #98-01, April 1998] and KHRG Information Update #2001-U3 [9/4/2001]). In western Nyaunglebin District, along the Sittaung River in Pegu Division, many have fled the forced relocation of at least 20 villages to relocation sites, forced labour, and the SPDC’s Sa Thon Lon execution squads, and headed east into the hills to join the hill villagers in hiding (see "Death Squads and Displacement" [KHRG #99-04, May 1999]).
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In Pa’an District of central Karen State, villagers in and around the Dawna Mountains have fled the destruction of their villages and forced labour on roads and Army camps to hide in areas with possibly the heaviest concentration of landmines in all of Burma (see "Beyond All Endurance" [KHRG #99-08, 20/12/99] and KHRG Information Update #2001-U1 [20/2/2001]). In Dooplaya District, which forms the southern portion of Karen State, SPDC forces have occupied and heavily militarised most of the region since 1997; most small villages have been ordered to move into larger garrison villages and hand over their entire food supply to the Army, receiving it back as a ration each day. Despite the more open terrain of the district and the greater difficulty of hiding, even here villagers have fled rather than face the troops every day to get their ‘ration’ and do forced labour on the roads and Army camps (see "Starving Them Out" [KHRG #2000-02, 31/3/00]).
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Finally, far to the south in Tenasserim Division, SPDC troops have been working to consolidate their hold over the rugged territory since their massive offensive there in 1997. This has included forcibly relocating over 100 villages in areas to the west which they firmly control, and destroying many villages further east in areas which they find it difficult to control, in both cases displacing thousands of people into the hills.
The photos below come from all of these regions, particularly Papun and Nyaunglebin districts which currently have the most extensive displacement. They are divided into 4 subsections: Life on the Run, Food, Health, and Education. Life on the Run documents the physical flight of people from their villages and from SPDC columns, their struggle to survive in hiding in the forests, and ends by documenting the final flight into Thailand of some of them who finally found they could not survive near their land anymore. Food documents the struggle of the internally displaced to get enough food to survive. Health shows their desperate lack of health care and their efforts to try to survive with only traditional medicines. Education focuses on the children, their loss of access to education because of displacement and the courageous efforts of villagers to continue teaching their children even while on the run in the jungle.
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| F1 | F2 |
Photos #F1, F2: Internally displaced villagers on the run from L---, M--- and M--- areas (Dweh Loh township, Papun District) in late June 2001. At the time this photo was taken, SPDC troops had just arrived at xxxx village only 10 minutes’ walk away, so they were fleeing up into the highest hills in fear. Night was about to fall, and being rainy season the conditions on the high mountains are extremely cold and wet, making survival extremely difficult. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F3 | F4 |
Photos #F3, F4: Internally displaced villagers in Dweh Loh township, Papun District, on June 21st 2001. The night before they had to flee L---, N---, L--- and P--- villages because a column of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #111 arrived in the area; the villagers from L--- escaped only 5 minutes before the arrival of the SPDC column. When this photo was taken, they were only 30 minutes’ walk from the location of the SPDC column. It was the start of the rainy season, which is very cold and wet in the area and will make their lives extremely difficult. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F5 | F6 | F7 | F8 |
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| F9 | F10 | F11 | F12 |
Photos #F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11, F12: Karen villagers flee through the forests of Nyaunglebin District in May 2001. These people fled their homes in Du Pa Leh village up into the hills because SPDC troops had occupied their village. They then tried to go and stay back near their village, but had to flee again because an SPDC Army column came up to their hiding area, and had to keep fleeing from place to place through April and May. One to two weeks after most of these photos were taken, they headed into Papun District and decided to try to make it to Thailand. The bamboo stick being carried by the little girl in Photo #F9 is for keeping leeches off during the hike through the jungle; the small cloth on the end of it contains tobacco, which when wettened and rubbed on the ankles repels leeches. Even so, hundreds of leeches latch onto the legs of walkers within a few hours, especially in rainy season. See also photos below. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F13 | F14 | F15 | F16 | F17 |
Photos #F13, F14, F15, F16, F17: A group of displaced villagers from Du Pa Leh village in Nyaunglebin District set up temporary shelters to rest and hide in the forest in May 2001 (see also photos above). Shortly thereafter they had to flee SPDC troops again, and eventually decided to try to flee to Thailand. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F18 |
Photo #F18: Naw H--- and her small son from W--- village in Toungoo District, taken in July 2001. Since fleeing their village they live alone in this hut with no other villagers around; they say the families of their village do not dare stay in a group for fear of detection by SPDC patrols. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F19 | F20 |
Photos #F19, F20: Villagers from Wah Soe village, eastern Toungoo District, in hiding in the forest in July 2001. Their village is along the new road being built with forced labour from Klay Soe Kee to Mawchi in Karenni State, so they no longer dare stay there (see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages", KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/2000). They live in groups of only one or two families, saying that otherwise they would risk detection by SPDC columns. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F21 | F22 |
Photos #F21, F22: Some of the huts of internally displaced villagers from Bu Sah Kee in southeastern Toungoo District in July 2001. Bu Sah Kee is at the end of the forced labour road which the SPDC built into Toungoo District to militarise the area; there are now several Army camps along the road, including at Bu Sah Kee. As a result, most of the villagers along the road have fled forced labour on the road and as porters and now live in hiding in the hills in huts like these. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F23 | F24 | F25 |
Photos #F23, F24, F25: Karen villagers move through Papun District in May 2001 on their way to the Thai border after fleeing their homes in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. Since the beginning of 2001, SPDC troops have established a heavy military presence in the hills of eastern Shwegyin township, causing villagers to flee eastward as their villages are burned and civilians are shot on sight or captured to be porters. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F26 |
Photo #F26: Naw T--- and her family from Dweh Loh township, displaced and camping alongside the xxxx River in April 2001. They fled their village in February 2001 when it was entirely burned and destroyed by SPDC troops. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F27 |
Photo #F27: Ma T---, 35, and two of her three children. She and her husband fled T’Kaw Hta village in Dweh Loh township, Papun District, when a column of 70 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion #1 (under the command of #66 Division) came and burned their entire village in February 2000. They have now been living in this field hut in Lu Thaw township for more than a year. Far from their own fields, they have no way to make a living so Ma T--- and her children weave mats and sell them. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F28 | F29 |
Photos #F28, F29: Displaced villagers from Nyaunglebin District flee through Papun District on their way to the Thai border in April 2001 after their villages were destroyed by SPDC troops. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #F30: Internally displaced children from T--- village in the forest in Papun District, April 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F31 | F32 |
Photo #F31, F32: Houses of displaced villagers from Saw Mu Plaw and Ler Mu Plaw village tracts, Papun District, in April 2001. People from their home villages scattered to escape SPDC troops who destroyed the villages in their area, and they now live in small groups of families in many different locations. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F33 | F34 |
Photos #F33, F34: Internally displaced Karen villagers cook and eat by night in the forests of central Nyaunglebin District, March 2001. This group is from T--- village. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F35 |
Photo #F35: Internally displaced villagers from T--- village gather in April 2001 to discuss the situation with their village elders and some KNLA representatives. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F36 | F37 |
Photos #F36, F37: The hidden shelters of villagers from Tee Ler Pa and Thay Ko Hser Der villages in eastern Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District. They and about 2,000 others fled their homes and headed eastward into Papun District in January 2001 when SPDC troops came up into the hills and destroyed all the villages in their area. Villages have also been destroyed in the area where they are hiding, so they must always be ready to move. These pictures were taken in March 2001, but they are still in hiding in the same area. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F38 | F39 | F40 | F41 |
Photos #F38, F39, F40, F41: In March 2001, Karen villagers flee their homes in L--- village, 20 kilometres north of Shwegyin in Nyaunglebin District, because the SPDC has been destroying all hill villages in their area. This group said they hoped to make it to a refugee camp in Thailand. The Thai border is about 100 kilometres to the east in a straight line, through territory where all villages have been destroyed. If they make it, the trek will probably take 2 to 3 weeks, dodging SPDC patrols and landmines the entire way. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F42 |
Photo #F42: Internally displaced Karen villagers in the Ya Wah River area, Mergui-Tavoy District, Tenasserim Division, in March 2001. The SPDC has destroyed many of the hill villages in the area since 1997, while people in villages under SPDC control are constantly used for forced labour to support the Army’s campaign to control the region. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F43 |
Photo #F43: Huts of the internally displaced hidden in the forest in northern Papun District, March 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #F44: Orphan children among the internally displaced in northern Papun District, March 2001. Many children in the area have lost both parents to illness or killings by SPDC troops since the SPDC began destroying their villages in 1997. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F45 |
Photo #F45: Internally displaced children who have been orphaned and are staying in hiding with their Aunts and Uncles in central Papun District, March 2001. Some lost their parents to illness, while others were killed by SPDC troops. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F46 |
Photo #F46: Internally displaced Karen villagers in Papun District weave thatch shingles to roof their shelters in the forest. They fled in March 2001 after SPDC troops destroyed their village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F47 | F48 | F49 |
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| F50 | F51 | F52 |
Photos #F47, F48, F49, F50, F51, F52: Karen villagers from Maw Kee village in Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District, flee through Papun District in March 2001 in an attempt to get to a refugee camp in Thailand. They say that SPDC Light Infantry Division #77 troops came from Shwegyin to base themselves near their village in mid to late 2000 and began demanding forced labour, extortion and other things. When the villagers fled outside the village, LID 77 sent out patrols to hunt them and shoot at them. They fled to another village, but the troops followed them there, shot at them and burned the village, so they fled back to their home area. Then the troops found them and shot at them again so they continued fleeing, and in October 2000 Saw K--- (age 38, see Photos #F49, F48 and F52) stepped on a landmine near Thay Ko Pu village and lost his lower left leg. While he was recuperating and the villagers were staying in field huts where they didn’t even dare light a cookfire for fear of detection, the 77 Division troops located them again and began shelling them so they fled up further into the hills. The troops found them again, shot 2 of them dead and wounded 7 others. When these photos were taken in March 2001 they had been on the run for about 6 months nonstop, and had decided they had no choice but to make for a refugee camp in Thailand; they had been joined by some villagers from Thay Ko Pu, Meh Yeh Kee, Tee Blah and Kaw Mu Der villages, also in Nyaunglebin District and facing a similar situation. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and a very small quantity of rice. In Photo #F52, the group takes a rest to eat. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F53 | F54 | F55 |
Photos #F53, F54, F55: Villagers from H--- village, Nyaunglebin District, hide in the forest after SPDC troops from Light Infantry Battalion #501 entered and destroyed their village on February 28th 2001. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F56 | F57 | F58 |
Photos #F56, F57, F58: Karen villagers from Bper Kee, K’Dee Mu Der and Htaw Ee Soe villages in Nyaunglebin District hiding in the forest in March 2001 after fleeing SPDC troops who came and occupied the area around their villages in late February 2001. Photo #F57 shows some of them pounding rice to remove the husks using an improvised bamboo levered pounder. As Photo #F58 shows, even after seeing their homes burned and fleeing into the jungle, children still love to have fun. For some of them it is all a great adventure, until the food runs out and they come down with malaria and diarrhoea. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F59 |
Photo #F59: Villagers in Nyaunglebin District head into the forest to hide from SPDC troops in March 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #F60: Internally displaced Karen villagers in Nyaunglebin District discuss their future. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #F61: Paw Thu village in Papun District, abandoned since the villagers fled to the forest to escape SPDC troops in early 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F62 | F63 | F64 |
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| F65 | F66 | F67 |
Photos #F62, F63, F64, F65, F66, F67: Villagers from xxxx village in Dweh Loh township, Papun District, living displaced in the forest because of the heavy SPDC presence around their village. Throughout 2000, troops from SPDC Tactical Operations Command #662 based at Meh Way camp destroyed much of the village and the surrounding hill fields. The villagers fled, and the first two photos show them surviving in the forest, with the women pounding and sifting the rice. Back in the village, Photo #F64 shows the abandoned Buddhist monastery; the monk had to flee with the villagers and now uses a small bamboo hut as his temple (Photo #F65). In late March 2001, an SPDC column from Light Infantry Division #33 approached their hiding place, so all of them had to flee up the cliffs further into the hills, as shown in Photos #F66 and F67. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F68 | F69 |
Photos #F68, F69: Karen villagers from K--- and T--- villages in Kyauk Kyi township, Nyaunglebin District, living in hiding in the jungle after their village was destroyed in early 2001 by SPDC troops. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F70 |
Photo #F70: An internally displaced family living on split bamboo sheets without a roof in the forest in Papun District. This family from K--- village, Lu Thaw township, fled their village along with 2 other families a week after SPDC troops occupied the area of their home village in mid-February 2001. This photo was taken two weeks later. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F71 | F72 | F73 | F74 | F75 |
Photos #F71, F72, F73, F74, F75: A group of Karen villagers from eastern Nyaunglebin District during the flight from their villages eastward into Papun District on January 30th 2001. SPDC columns had come up from the west to camp around their villages, looting and destroying their homes, destroying their crops and capturing any people they could find for forced labour or shooting them on sight. These people are now internally displaced in hiding in Papun District, where they must often flee continuing SPDC patrols; for more information see KHRG Information Update #2001-U3, 9/4/2001. [Photo: Free Burma Rangers researcher]
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| F76 | F77 |
Photos #F76, F77: About 200 of the villagers mentioned above (Photos #F71 through F75) cross the Bilin River during their January 2001 flight from Nyaunglebin District into Papun District, where they are still displaced. They fled after SPDC columns came up from the west to camp around their villages, destroying houses, looting, destroying crops, and taking anyone they found with them for forced labour. [Photos: Free Burma Rangers researcher]
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| F78 | F79 | F80 |
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| F81 | F82 | F83 |
Photos #F78, F79, F80, F81, F82, F83: Karen villagers flee their villages in eastern Shwegyin township, west of the Bilin River, in January 2001. A large column of troops from SPDC LIB #369 came from the west and stayed in the area of Kaw Mu Der, Thay Ko Hser Der, Hoh Lu, Tee Blah and other villages for a week, looting and destroying food supplies. Over 2,000 villagers fled east into Papun District, where most of them are still in hiding in the hills. The column appeared to be under orders to clear out all villages west of the Bilin river and drive the villagers to the west for use as forced labour. After the villagers fled, the column laid landmines around several of their villages and fields [see KHRG Information Update #2001-U3 for further details]. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F84 | F85 | F86 |
Photos #F84, F85, F86: Karen villagers cross the Bilin River fleeing from Nyaunglebin District into Papun District (see Photos #F78 through F83 above for explanation). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F87 | F88 | F89 |
Photos #F87, F88, F89: Displaced villagers from Tee Blah, Tee Mu Der and other villages who had to flee large columns of LIB #368 and #369 who came to destroy their villages in January and February 2001 (see also Photos #F78 through F86 for further details). These photos were taken in January and February, when they were first hiding in the forest; they are still there now. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F90 | F91 | F92 | F93 |
Photos #F90, F91, F92, F93: Internally displaced villagers from Ler Hsu Ko, K’Dee Mu Der and Yoh Po Loh villages in Nyaunglebin District hide in the forests after fleeing to western Papun District when their villages were destroyed by SPDC columns early in 2001. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F94 | F95 |
Photos #F94, F95: Karen women from T--- village, Papun District, cross a bamboo bridge as they flee to Thailand in January 2001. They told KHRG that they could no longer bear the forced labour, village and food destruction, and living on the run from the SPDC. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F96 | F97 | F98 | F99 |
Photos #F96, F97, F98, F99: Internally displaced Karen villagers from Hsaw Wah Der, Thay Ku Der, Ha Toh Per and Wah Soe villages living in hiding in the forests of Toungoo District. They had to flee their villages because the SPDC has been militarising the area and their villages lie near a road being built with forced labour from Kler Lah (Bawgali Gyi) eastward to Mawchi in Karenni State. Villagers throughout the region have fled into the hills to avoid forced labour and other abuses by all of the new military camps in the area, and SPDC troops have been destroying their homes and crops and hunting them in the hills for several years now. [For more details see "Peace Villages & Hiding Villages" (KHRG #2000-05, 15/10/2000).] [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F100 | F101 |
Photos #F100, F101: Displaced villagers from K--- and G--- villages in Nyaunglebin District. Both groups fled after SPDC troops camped around their villages in late 2000 and began shooting villagers on sight during the rice harvest. Naw P--- from G--- (Photo #F101) said that the people of her village had to flee even though their rice harvest was only partially complete, leaving their crops behind to be destroyed. Several months of climbing mountains and being always on the run followed. When these photos were taken in March 2001, they were still all in hiding in the forest, and they remain so. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F102 |
Photo #F102: Naw K---, 35, and two of her children. They are from L--- village in Nyaunglebin District, but had to flee into hiding in the forest when Light Infantry Division #77 first came to their village in 1997. They stayed further east, in the hills adjacent to Papun district, until in November 2000 a column of Light Infantry Battalion #365 came to hunt out villagers in that area and they had to flee further east again, where they are still in the forest. Naw K--- lamented that they have no medicine, no school, and that there is not enough food because they have to share it between all the families in hiding. She says she first had to flee her home village of Pwa Ghaw in Papun District when she was 10, and has been on the run from the Burmese ever since. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F103 |
Photo #F103: Karen villagers fleeing K--- village in western Papun District in December 2000 with whatever they can carry, because an SPDC column is approaching the village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F104 | F105 |
Photo #F104, F105: Villagers from M---, W--- and L--- villages in western Papun District, living in hiding in the forest after SPDC columns destroyed their villages. In Photo #F104 the villagers are pounding paddy to dehusk it. The young woman in Photo #F105 is ill; malaria, diarrhoea, severe vitamin deficiencies, infections, and other problems are very common among the internally displaced, but they have no access to medicines and many die of treatable diseases. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F106 |
Photo #F106: A Karen Buddhist monk in Papun District who now lives among the internally displaced in the forest. He told KHRG, "Back when I could stay in my village my villagers built me a monastery. But since 1997 the SPDC battalions have driven us up and down and burned our village. They drove some of the villagers to Meh Way and others to Pway Day, and some villagers fled to stay in the hills. Right now we who live in the jungle don’t have hillfields anymore, because every time we try to work them two or three Battalions come and burn it. We can just get a little for each of us after they burn it. The troops search for our things, they saw all of the things which belonged to the monastery that my villagers had provided, and they took it all. All of the things they took would cost 200,000 Kyat. When they came they also shot at two of my villagers, Saw H--- and H---’s father. They weren’t hurt, but the soldiers took everything they had. The SPDC Battalions don’t fight other armies anymore, they just attack the villagers. It’s not easy for me to be a monk anymore. They shoot all the people that they see. Right now even though I’m a monk I have to work a hillfield, because the villagers can’t feed me anymore. We have to work for ourselves. We don’t have our monastery anymore. We have to live in the jungle, and if they see us they will shoot us. If they capture us they will torture us and then kill us." [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F107 |
Photo #F107: Children of P--- village, Papun District. Since early 2000 SPDC columns have repeatedly come to their village to hunt them out and destroy their food supplies, also burning 8 houses there, so they and their families now live in hiding in the forest and they have no chance to go to school. The day after this photo was taken in September 2000 they had to flee further into the forest, sleeping on the ground in the rain, because an SPDC column was headed for their hiding place. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F108 |
Photo #F108: An internally displaced child from P--- village, Papun District, plays alone in the forest in rainy season. Her family’s shelter is in the background. SPDC troops from SPDC Division 66, Light Infantry Battalion #14, destroyed her village, burned or uprooted the rice crop and cut down five betelnut plantations. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F109 | F110 |
Photos #F109, F110: Families of P--- village, Papun District, who have been living in hiding since SPDC patrols began coming regularly to their village in early 2000 to force them to move to Meh Way. In these photos taken in mid-September 2000, they are fleeing further into the forest in the rain because an SPDC column is approaching their shelters. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F111 |
Photo #F111: Villagers from L--- village in western Papun District flee through the forest because an SPDC column has come to their village. Small children must usually be carried along with the food and belongings, because they cannot do the long and rugged hike quickly enough to escape SPDC columns. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F112 |
Photo #F112: Villagers from M--- village, northern Papun District, rest during their flight through the forest after an SPDC column came to their village. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F113 |
Photo #F113: Internally displaced children during flight from one hiding place to another, April 2000. The villagers in hiding must always stay one step ahead of the SPDC columns which hunt them. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F114 | F115 |
Photos #F114, F115: Two families from different villages in Nyaunglebin District, interviewed while they were fleeing through Papun District on their way to the Thai border after SPDC troops made it impossible to live in their villages any longer. Saw N--- (Photo #F114, back left) said, "They came when the paddy was ripe and stayed until the villagers carried it to the paddy barn and pounded it. They burned the paddy barns and took the rice. They stabbed holes into some of the cookpots and took the others. The villagers had to flee without even gathering our clothes. We don’t have anything to wear. We are going to the refugee camp. All of the villagers are suffering like this. They destroyed most of the food but some people could carry some away." He says that after burning his village and destroying much of the crop, the troops landmined the village. He himself had been beaten and robbed by SPDC soldiers and his brother was murdered and beheaded by an SPDC unit in 1999 after taking Saw N---’s place as village head, leaving a wife and 5 children who are now in "a very serious situation". Saw P--- (Photo #F115, back right) described how the troops destroyed all of his rice and killed several villagers in his area without reason, as well as how Division 66 detained and tortured two sisters from Meh Kee village aged 17 and 19, the younger one of them mute: "It was 66 that did this. They tied both of them up and then hurt them. They burned them with fire and tied something around their heads. They finally escaped and ran back to us. When they got back, their hands and legs were burned and bruised. She just showed us - she can’t talk. N--- [the mute girl] just ran and escaped a week ago. Her elder sister was tied up and escaped the same night. N--- was left there alone. The people asked her if she was raped but she can’t talk and couldn’t understand them. She just showed her hands and legs and we saw that they were bruised." [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F116 | F117 | F118 | F119 |
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| F120 | F121 | F122 |
Photos #F116, F117, F118, F119, F120, F121, F122: Karen villagers cross the Moei River from Pa’an District into Thailand in mid-January 2001, on their way to a refugee camp. They told KHRG they were fleeing forced labour portering, building Army camps and clearing landmines for SPDC Battalions which had just moved into their home area of Meh Kreh and Kwih Law Ploh in northeastern Pa’an District. To support the new Army camps, they had also been used as forced labour to build a new military supply road from Shan Ywathit to Kha Leh Dee, both clearing the road route and walking in front of a bulldozer to detonate any landmines. More information based on interviews with these refugees can be found in KHRG Information Update #2001-U1. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F123 |
Photo #F123: Children who arrived at a refugee camp in Thailand in March 2001 after fleeing Papun District with their families, where they were internally displaced and could no longer survive being hunted and having their food destroyed by SPDC patrols. On arrival, Thai authorities force them into overcrowded ‘longhouses’ like this one, where they must stay for months while they are considered for official admission to the camps by the ‘provincial admission board’. These boards are made up of military, paramilitary, police and government officials who have no training or knowledge in refugee law or the situation in Burma, and who routinely reject en masse the cases of new refugees. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
The photos below cover some aspects of the struggle of the villagers in hiding to obtain enough food to survive despite the SPDC’s operations to systematically destroy their food supplies. Internally displaced villagers are forced to risk their lives to retrieve a basket of rice from their rice storage barn, plant a small crop in a hill field, or hike to an SPDC-controlled town to buy rice and smuggle it back into the hills. Many survive this way for months or years before the SPDC succeeds in driving them to starvation, leaving them little choice but to flee to other areas or toward the border with Thailand.
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| C14 | C15 |
Photos #C14, C15: As part of the campaign to depopulate the hills of eastern Toungoo District, SPDC troops from Infantry Battalion #90 came to the area of Bper Loh village on March 23rd 2001 to destroy shelters and food supplies used by displaced villagers. They destroyed whatever rice they couldn’t carry away with them. Photo #C14, taken several weeks later, shows one site where they dumped the rice on the ground and burned it; some of the grains which survived the fire have already germinated green shoots. Photo #C15 shows a stream where the troops dumped some of the rice, where much of it has already grown from the seed. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| C16 | C17 |
Photos #C16, C17: Unhusked paddy grain which SPDC Division #44 troops scattered on the ground and burned when they destroyed villages in Meh Nyu Hta area, eastern Papun District, in April 2001. The villagers were ordered to relocate to a fenced site beside an Army camp. In Photo #C16, a villager gathers up whatever unburned grains he can for food into the metal half-drum on the left. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| C18 |
Photo #C18: Hill rice fields in Meh Thu village tract (Dweh Loh township, Papun District) in late June 2001. The villagers from Ner Kee, Ker Kaw and Paw Wah Der villages had prepared these and other fields for planting, but in early June 2001 SPDC columns from Light Infantry Battalion #119 came into the Ker Kaw Law valley and patrolled through the fields every one or two days, so the villagers couldn’t dare plant a crop. The villagers, now in hiding, say that there are 39 hill fields which they have not been able to plant as a result, so many of them may face starvation later in the year. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| C1 | C2 | C3 |
Photo #C1, C2, C3: Farmfield huts and crop fields burned by SPDC troops in Tenasserim Division as part of their campaign to consolidate control over the region, March 2001. Photo #C3 shows a group of villagers who have been displaced by the campaign standing in the ruins of their ricefield. Villagers normally burn off hillfields before planting, but if it is done too early a proper crop cannot be planted; SPDC troops have taken to doing this as one of the ways to wipe out the food supply of the internally displaced villagers. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| C10 |
Photo #C10: The remains of a farmfield hut in the Ler Mu Plaw area, northern Papun District, burned by SPDC troops in early 2000. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| C13 |
Photo #C13: The bottoms of cookpots owned by Karen villagers in Bilin township (Thaton District), showing how SPDC troops destroyed them in April 2001 by slashing holes in them with their bayonets. When SPDC troops rampage through villages looking for valuables and porters, they make a point of destroying whatever they cannot take with them in order to make life impossible for the villagers. Slashing holes in the bottom of cookpots, rendering them useless, is one of their most common offenses. For villagers living on the brink of survival in outlying areas, new cookpots can be difficult if not impossible to obtain, and more expensive than they can afford. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F124 |
Photo #F124: Two internally displaced boys from T--- village, Papun District, head into the forest to fetch some of their hidden paddy. Families must hide their food supplies deep in the forest so that they won’t be found and destroyed by SPDC patrols, even if the family’s shelter is found. The trip to fetch it can be dangerous due to landmines and patrols who shoot villagers on sight. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F125 |
Photo #F125: Displaced villagers in the xxxx area of Papun District return to their hidden shelters in the forest after fetching paddy from their hidden rice storage barns in March 2001. Villagers in hiding must keep their food supplies in hidden caches while they remain regularly on the move, but SPDC columns systematically hunt out these paddy storage barns to destroy the food in them. Making the trip to retrieve a supply of food can be a very dangerous undertaking. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F126 | F127 |
Photos #F126, F127: In January 2001, these villagers from xxxx village (Shwegyin township, Nyaunglebin District) fled SPDC troops eastward into Papun District and began living in hiding in the forest. These photos were taken in May 2001, when some of the men dodged SPDC troops to sneak back to their paddy storage barns near their home village. They got some of their paddy and brought it back to this location halfway, where they pounded it to remove the husks (the rice pounder is visible on the right in Photo #F127) and winnowed and sifted it before taking it the rest of the way back to their hidden shelters to the east in Papun District. The women later joked about the men’s somewhat clumsy efforts to winnow the rice (as shown in the photos), which is work usually done by the women; however, the women did not go along on this trip because it was seen as far too dangerous. Trips back to the village are extremely dangerous in cases like these, but internally displaced villagers have to do it or they will have no rice to eat. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F128 | F129 | F130 |
Photos #F128, F129, F130: Villagers from T--- and K--- villages in Papun District who have been living in the forest since SPDC units based themselves around their villages at the end of 2000. They told KHRG that they don’t dare return to their villages to get their food supplies anymore, and that they cannot grow more than a few baskets of rice because they always have to keep running and can’t tend their fields properly. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F131 |
Photo #F131: Not all villagers in the hills of Toungoo District go to the forced relocation sites as ordered, choosing instead to stay in hiding in the forested hills and work their fields despite the risk of being shot on sight by SPDC patrols. In this photo, internally displaced villagers gather to work a hill rice field. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F132 | F133 | F134 |
Photos #F132, F133, F134: Karen villagers from B--- village, Lu Thaw township, Papun District. On November 18th 2000 SPDC troops from Light Infantry Battalion #365 came into the area and opened fire on some Y--- villagers who were harvesting rice. The people of B--- village heard the shots and immediately fled into the forest, and the LIB 365 troops came to B--- village and burned it. A few days later the villagers tried to go back to their village to get some rice, but the troops were still there and opened fire on them so they fled. These pictures were taken 2 weeks later, when the B--- villagers were still displaced in the forest and the troops were still occupying their village. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F135 | F136 |
Photos #F135, F136: Villagers from T--- village who fled when a combined column of Light Infantry Battalions #365, 367 and 369 destroyed their village on November 24th 2000. They heard that the column was coming from the direction of Nyaunglebin District and had already destroyed Kaw Mu Der and Thay Ko Hser Der villages on its way, so they fled to the forest before the troops reached their village. They told KHRG that when the column arrived, the troops burned their houses, killed all their livestock and looted their rice. When the photo was taken weeks later, the villagers dared not go back because the troops were still around the village; it was harvest time, but they didn’t dare return to their fields so the entire harvest was lost. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F137 |
Photo #F137: Internally displaced villagers in western Papun District meet with a KNLA officer (in camouflage and beret, centre) to discuss the possibility of going back to the fields near their village to harvest some of their paddy crop, despite the presence of SPDC columns in the area. At harvest time SPDC columns are sent out to shoot villagers seen harvesting and to uproot or landmine the crops, but villagers must take the risk or face starvation. KNLA units sometimes accompany them to provide some protection, and the harvest is sometimes carried out by night. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
The photos below relate to the struggle of the internally displaced against illness and injuries in the face of an almost total lack of modern medicines or outside medical care. The SPDC prohibits all transport of medicines into areas where there are internally displaced villagers on the grounds that these medicines ‘could end up with the resistance’, and there have been many cases of traders and villagers being arrested or executed when caught trying to carry medicines into the hills. Among those hiding in the forest many are killed by SPDC forces, but many more are dying of treatable illnesses such as malaria, dysentery, diarrhoea and infections, especially children and the elderly. As an example, a village elder from Sho Per Ko village in northern Papun District told KHRG that 28 adults from his village of 70 families have died of treatable illnesses since the villagers were displaced by SPDC troops in 1997 - more than one from every three families (see Photos #F147 and F148). For additional photos related to the difficulty of obtaining treatment for displaced villagers who have been shot, tortured or stepped on landmines, see also the "Shootings and Killings" and "Landmines" sections.
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| F138 |
Photo #F138: A baby in Papun District who had already been suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea for 3 days when this photo was taken. SPDC units have blocked off all access to medicines for villagers in this region, so infant mortality is extremely high. The drip bottle in the photo was supplied by a KNLA medic, though they usually do not have enough medicine to treat the villagers. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F139 |
Photo #F139: Internally displaced villagers in T--- area of Papun District bring their sick for treatment to a KNLA medic. KNLA medics and independent mobile medical teams are the only source of treatment for the illnesses, landmine injuries, gunshot wounds and other injuries suffered by the internally displaced, but the small supplies of medicines they can carry are always overwhelmed by the enormous need. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F140 | F141 |
Photos #F140, F141: In Photo #F140, a mother arrives with her sick daughter after coming from their hiding place in the forest hoping to get treatment from a KNLA medic in early April 2001. She joined dozens of other displaced parents who had also brought their children (see Photo #F139 above). However, in this case it was too late. The girl died on April 8th; in Photo #F141, her father holds her shortly after her death. She was 7 years old and her home village was H--- in southern Papun District. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F142 |
Photo #F142: Saw Law Eh Htoo, a 10 month old baby from Kheh Pa village tract in Papun District who has been on the run in the forest with his parents since shortly after his birth. He is now showing signs of serious malnutrition and is not growing properly. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F143 |
Photo #F143: April 2001. This family in Bu Tho township, Papun District had to flee their village when SPDC troops came to burn it. At the time, the mother had just given birth, and the physical strain of fleeing killed her within a few days. Her husband is now left with the three children, including the newborn infant on the floor just to his right. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F144 | F145 |
Photos #F144, F145: Naw G---, age 7, a little girl from T--- village in Nyaunglebin District who fled into the forest with her parents and 5 siblings in November 2000 because SPDC troops occupied the area around their village. Her mother told KHRG, "When they came up they looked for and destroyed our fields. They burned our village and all of our paddy barns. We didn’t dare stay in the village anymore and we fled to hide in the jungle - not only our whole village, everyone in the other villages nearby also fled to hide. The SPDC chased the villagers who had fled. They found our hidden huts, took all our clothes and belongings and burned all of the huts. At that time I had 6 children, and we fled into the jungle. We couldn’t get proper food or shelter, so my children got fevers, chills, diarrhoea,… Four of my children died. If we had medicine they wouldn’t have died, but we couldn’t dare go anywhere and we had no money, so they died and left us…" Two of Naw G---’s older siblings and two younger than her died. Naw G--- herself survived her illnesses, but a combination of malnutrition, vitamin deficiency and lack of medicines had weakened her to the point where her legs are now like sticks and she can no longer walk. When these photos were taken in late March 2001, she and her parents were trying to flee to Thailand. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F146 |
Photo #F146: Saw A---, an internally displaced villager from K--- village (Dweh Loh township, Papun District). On November 15th 2000 a column of SPDC Division #33 came to his village, shot and killed villagers and burned the houses, so he and the other villagers fled to stay in hiding alongside the xxxx River. When this photo was taken in April 2001 he had already had a bad abscess in his foot for more than 2 months, but the displaced villagers have no antibiotics, disinfectants or sanitary bandages, so his foot worsened until he could no longer walk. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F147 | F148 |
Photos #F147, F148: Orphans from Sho Per Ko village in northern Papun District, April 2001. Formerly a pleasant hilltop village of about 70 households, it was destroyed when SPDC troops came in 1997 and based themselves nearby in Ler Mu Plaw. The villagers scattered, and the former village headman says that from 1997 to 2000 twenty-eight of the adults died of illnesses because of the lack of medicines - more than one from every three families. These five children lost both parents to illness, and now live with their displaced relatives. The villagers lament that none of their children have a chance to attend school anymore. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F149 | F150 |
Photos #F149, F150: Orphans in Papun District. The father of the 5 children in Photo #F149, 38-year-old farmer Saw Daw Lay Htoo, was gunned down by Infantry Battalion #39 in March 1997 when his wife was pregnant with Saw H--- (photo, far left). Saw H--- was born in October 1997, but only 3 months later their mother died of illness because they were displaced and had no access to medicines. The five children were then taken in by their Aunt, 40-year-old Naw A---, who had lost her own husband to illness at the same time that Saw Daw Lay Htoo was shot. She has been caring for them along with her own 3 children ever since, struggling to live in hiding in the forest. Photo #F150 shows Naw A--- with her own 3 children. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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Photo #F151: Saw N---, a widower age 50 from B--- village in northern Papun District. As a widower, Saw N---’s two sons helped him a lot until 1996/97, when SLORC/SPDC troops came to destroy his village. They shot dead his eldest son, 27-year-old Saw Heh Nay Paw, then looted and burned their house and their paddy barn, destroyed their crop in the field, and killed and ate their poultry. Saw N--- fled into the forest with his younger son Saw Wah Nay Htoo, age 22, and they survived in the forest on taro roots and bamboo shoots until Saw Wah Nay Htoo got sick with diarrhoea and vomiting. With no medicine or proper food, his condition only got worse until he died. Saw N--- now lives alone in the fields and says it is very difficult without his sons, but the SPDC set up an Army camp near his village so he has never been able to go back. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
When SPDC columns destroy villages, the school and other community buildings are usually their first targets. Displaced in the hills, children lose all access to education and both they and their parents often lament this fact when speaking to KHRG researchers in the field. The extent to which these people value education becomes clear when you find a group of villagers in the forest, living on the ground in lean-to shelters of leaves with almost nothing to eat and on the run from SPDC troops, yet with a rudimentary blackboard set up between the trees teaching their children to read and write (see for example Photos #F153 through F156).
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Photo #F152: Abandoned schoolhouse in Khaw Hta village, Papun District. All of the villagers fled into hiding in the forest because SPDC troops began destroying villages and hunting villagers in the area. Now that they are in the forest, the children no longer have a chance for education. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F153 |
Photo #F153: Not all villagers in the hills of Toungoo District go to the forced relocation sites as ordered, choosing instead to stay in hiding in the forested hills and work their fields despite the risk of being shot on sight by SPDC patrols. This photo shows an impromptu school for displaced children in hiding with their families in the forest. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F154 | F155 |
Photos #F154, F155: Some of the 70 displaced Karen children trying to study in this makeshift jungle school after fleeing Nyaunglebin District into Papun District in late January 2001 with their parents because SPDC columns had come to destroy their crops and houses and hunt them for forced labour. They are still living in hiding there. [Photos: Free Burma Rangers researcher]
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| F156 |
Photo #F156: Children from M--- and W--- villages in western Papun District attend an impromptu school under the trees. They fled their villages along with their parents in mid-2000 because SPDC columns burned down their houses and their school, and shoot on sight any villagers they see in the area. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F157 |
Photo #F157: Students of W--- primary school in Toungoo District, July 2001. Though they’ve had to flee their village with their families and live in hiding scattered widely in the forest, they built the temporary schoolhouse in the background and continue to study while living in hiding; their two teachers can be partly seen behind the centre of the group. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F158 |
Photo #F158: Naw K---, age 11, who has lost both of her parents to the SPDC’s campaigns to depopulate Nyaunglebin District. Originally from Yah Aw village in Shwegyin Township, she went to stay with her Aunt and Uncle further east in KNU-controlled territory because it was the only way she could attend school. When the SPDC began its campaign to depopulate the hills of Nyaunglebin District in 1997, her parents were displaced into the forest and her father fell ill and died because there was no access to medicine; he was in his forties. Then during the October/November 2000 harvest her mother, aged in her thirties, went to a hut where she had hidden some belongings in the forest. She found the hut already looted and destroyed by SPDC troops so she headed back to where she was staying, but on the way stepped on a landmine and was killed. Naw K--- was notified by people from her home village who had heard the explosion and found her mother’s body. At present she is in 3rd Standard (Grade 3), and says she hopes to continue school and will stay with her Aunt and Uncle but has little idea of her future. She already had to flee SPDC troops a few months ago and head further into the hills with her Aunt and Uncle, her teacher and the other villagers, and she says her new school is not good, it is just in the open air and they sit on straw they have laid on the ground. She has a younger brother aged 5 or 6, a kindergarten student who now stays with their grandparents. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F159 |
Photo #F159: A young boy from B--- village (Dweh Loh township, Papun District) who says that he went to school for one or two years in his village and would like to continue, but the SPDC Army has now destroyed his village and the school, so he has fled into the jungle with his family. He says he doesn’t want to flee anymore, he only wants to go back to school. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F160 |
Photo #F160: Two internally displaced girls in Papun District who told a KHRG researcher that they would really like to go to school, but they have no chance. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
Forced
Labour / Forced Relocation & Restrictions
/ Attacks on Villages
Detention & Torture / Shootings & Killings / Flight & Displacement
Landmines / Soldiers
/ Children