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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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In Karen areas children are frequently the victims of forced labour, detention, torture, shootings, village destruction, displacement and all of the other forms of suffering documented in this photo set. They suffer both as individual victims and also as part of a family unit and a village community.
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Photos related to children can therefore be found in all of the sections of this report. But it is also important to look at their particular problems as children, because they are much harder hit than adults by certain things, such as forced recruitment and disease, and also because they usually have less control over their own lives, making them even more vulnerable to all forms of suffering and abuse. For this reason we have selected photos related to children from all other sections of this photo set and included them again here, in a special section devoted to children.
We have divided these photos below into seven sections: Children and Forced Labour, which documents the SPDC’s use of children for forced labour and its effect on them; Violence Against Children, which shows cases of detention, torture, killings and other abuse of children; Orphans, which shows some of the stories of the rapidly increasing number of orphans in Karen areas; Displacement of Children, documenting the flight and displacement of children and its effect on them; Health, focusing on the lack of health care available to children, particularly the internally displaced; Education, regarding the problems of schooling, particularly for the increasing numbers of internally displaced children; and Child Soldiers, with photos of child soldiers in both the SPDC and KNLA armies. More information on the situation of children can be found in KHRG reports on individual regions.
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| A1 | A2 |
Photo #A1, A2: Villagers in Pa’an township, Thaton District, on their way to a shift of forced labour repairing a vehicle road in May 2001. While the young men carry mattocks for digging, the children and women (behind) carry bamboo baskets on their heads which they will use to haul dirt, and food which the villagers must bring for themselves. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A11 |
Photo #A11: Villagers of xxxx village in southern Papun District, gathering to go and do forced labour cutting and clearing the Papun - Ka Ma Maung vehicle road. Villagers in the area say that they have to cut wide ‘killing grounds’ along both sides of the road at least twice a year, and also have to fill potholes with rocks, build fences all along both sides of the road, stand sentry along the road on rotating shifts, and regularly sweep the road for landmines. Demands for this forced labour usually specify one person per household, which explains the many children among the group. At the same time they are also forced to do regular forced labour as porters and working at local Army camps, logging for the Army and supplying the Battalions with thatch roofing and other building materials. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A12 | A13 |
Photos #A12, A13: Karen villagers from xxxx village in southern Papun District head for the SPDC/DKBA Army camp at yyyy in mid-April 2001 carrying the 300 shingles of thatch they have been ordered to make for the Army. Villages in the area are regularly ordered to provide hundreds or thousands of shingles of thatch, some of which is used at the camp and some sold for the profit of the officers. To make the thatch shingles, the villagers must gather the leaves and bamboo in the forest, split the bamboo to make the shingle frames and weave the leaves onto the frames. Some of the villagers in these photos said they were also carrying miscellaneous water jugs and containers because when they arrive at the camp they are always forced to carry water from the stream up to the camp at the mountaintop. The SPDC units never pay them anything for all of this work. For examples of written orders demanding thatch, see "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2001-A" (KHRG #2001-02, 18/5/01) and "SPDC & DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" (KHRG #2000-04, 12/10/00). [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A14 | A15 | A16 |
Photos #A14, A15, A16: Only a week after the photos above (in the last week of April 2001), yet another group of villagers from the same village heads off for forced labour at the SPDC’s yyyy Army camp. This time they have been ordered to go to cut bamboo and build fences, but they are also taking along a few more shingles of thatch they have been ordered to bring. Note the young girls and boys among the group; many parents have no option but to send their children so that the adults can continue working to produce food for the family. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| A24 |
Photo #A24: In April 2001, villagers in xxxx village (southwestern Dweh Loh township, Papun District) carry bamboo to the riverbank, where they will tie it into rafts and float it to the camp of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx (part of Division #33). On April 27th the Battalion ordered the village to cut and deliver 1,500 pieces of bamboo by the following day, the 28th. Despite the near-impossibility of cutting and delivering so much bamboo in such a short time, the villagers must drop everything they are doing and try to comply or their village may be forced to relocate and destroyed for being ‘uncooperative’. At the same time they face regular demands for thatch and various forms of forced labour and extortion; even after delivering this bamboo, they will be forced to go to the camp to build things with it, while the officers may sell some of it for their own profit. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A50 |
Photo #A50: Women from northern Toungoo District whose villages were forcibly relocated to an SPDC garrison village in 1998, and who have been forced to porter supplies to outlying SPDC Army camps many times both before and since their relocation. Naw K---, second from left, is only 14 years old yet she has had to go several times already, and says that she often cried when she couldn’t carry on with her load but the SPDC soldiers shouted at them to keep going and kicked the men. Two of the women had seen other porters killed or maimed by landmines, and all of them say that when they were forced to go there were more women than men among the group of 50 or more porters. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A56 |
Photo #A56: Naw M---, an 18 year old villager from xxxx village in Toungoo District. In April 2001, she described to KHRG how she and others in her village are regularly forced to porter supplies for up to 10 days at a time to outlying SPDC Army camps at Naw Soe, K’Law Soe, Dta Kwih Soe, Kyauk Taung and Bu Sah Kee, all along the road from Kler Lah (Bawgali Gyi) to Bu Sah Kee. She says that she herself has been forced to do this regularly for 7 or 8 years already. She and the other porters are forced to walk in front of the troops in case of landmines, and she has witnessed several villagers killed by mines while portering; she also saw a new mother, forced to porter shortly after giving birth, die from the strain of the load. She says that since January 2001, 10 to 20 people from her village have to go every day to do forced labour clearing and maintaining the road route to Bu Sah Kee, and that 2 people must be sent every day for forced labour as messengers. Even when there is no work to be done, the people are forced to go and sit on standby at the Army camp, so they cannot work their fields anymore. Anyone who cannot go must pay fines of 400 to 5,000 Kyat, and if no one shows up for forced labour then the troops come and start beating up the villagers, including the elderly. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E1 | E2 |
Photos #E1, E2: Naw H---, age 9, from xxxx village, yyyy township, Papun District. On April 13th 2001, an SPDC column from Light Infantry Battalion #xxx on the move encountered KNLA forces and fought a skirmish over an hour’s walk away from her village. After the fighting, the SPDC column headed on towards Papun but as they passed xxxx village they ‘punished’ the village for the fighting by firing several rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) among the houses without warning. Naw H--- and her mother were wounded by shrapnel from the RPG shell that landed on their house. In the photos she shows scars of some of the wounds she received. See also Photo #E3 below. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E3 |
Photo #E3: One of the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) shells which SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx fired without warning at xxxx village on April 13th 2001 (see Photos #E1 and E2 above). This particular shell failed to explode on impact. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E9 | E10 |
Photos #E9, E10: Ma P--- from xxxx village in yyyy township (Thaton district). One morning at the end of March 2001, Column 2 of SPDC Light Infantry Battalion #xxx came into her village and started shooting without warning, wounding her and one of the village children. In Photo #E10 she shows the small wound she received. There were no resistance forces in the village; the troops simply shot up the village and then left to return to zzzz Army camp. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E20 | E21 |
Photos #E20, E21: Saw Bo Hla Win, age 21, from Wah Soe village (Photo #E20) and his cousin Saw Taw Lay Htoo, age 16, from Bu Sah Kee village (Photo #E21), Toungoo District. At about 2 p.m. on November 25th 2000, the two of them were returning from their hillside rice fields to their villages carrying some cucumbers (see foreground of Photo #E20) when they encountered troops from SPDC Infantry Battalion #289, Battalion Commander Soe Myint. The troops shot them dead on sight and left their bodies where they fell. Saw Bo Hla Win’s brother heard the shooting so he went that night and found his younger brother and cousin dead. When found, Saw Bo Hla Win had 8 bullet wounds and Saw Taw Lay Htoo had 6 bullet wounds. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Warning: These photos are graphic.
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| E30 | E31 | E32 | E33 |
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| E34 | E35 | E36 |
Photos #E30, E31, E32, E33, E34, E35, E36: Killings at xxxx village, Lu Thaw township, Papun District. On April 18th 2000 Saw K--- and his family from xxxx were staying at their field hut to gather firewood along with some relatives. Saw K---, 56, and his wife Naw Yweh Tee, 42, were cutting firewood under the hut just after noon, while some of the others were inside. SPDC troops from Light Infantry Battalion #385 saw them and positioned themselves in the bushes nearby, then opened fire on the hut without warning. Those inside the hut jumped down to the ground, and everyone started running in all directions. Saw K--- saw his wife shot in the abdomen and tried to drag her with him, but after pulling her to a nearby farmfield hut he saw she was dead and he left her and ran. His 17-year-old son Saw Dee Mu disappeared and didn’t turn up when the villagers regrouped later, so Saw K--- went back the next day and found his body near the hut. Saw Dee Mu had been shot in the back, with an exit wound in the left side of his chest. Naw D---, a 13 year old girl relative, had been hit by a bullet in the buttocks but had managed to escape, and the villagers carried her to help (see Photos #E37-E39 below). Photos #E30 and E31 show Naw Yweh Tee’s body where she died in the nearby farmfield hut, and Photo #E32 shows Saw Dee Mu’s body where Saw K--- found it in the open field. In Photo #E33, the villagers are preparing the bodies for transport and burial. Photo #E34 shows Saw K--- sifting through the burned ruin of his hut the day after the shooting; after shooting the villagers, the SPDC troops looted the belongings in the hut and burned it to the ground. Saw K--- was left with 6 children aged 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16, and says it is very difficult surviving in the hills while caring for them all by himself; Photos #E35 and E36 show Saw K--- and some of his remaining children much later, in early 2001. See also Photos #E37 through E39 below of Naw D---, who was wounded in the shooting. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E37 | E38 | E39 |
Photos #E37, E38, E39: Naw D---, age 13, also from xxxx village, who was shot in the buttocks and wounded in the wrist and ankle by M79 grenade fragments as she tried to flee the hut (see description with Photos #E30-E36 above). She managed to run far enough to escape, but then had to be carried by other villagers. Photo #E37 shows her receiving basic treatment from other villagers; Photo #E39 shows Naw D--- later, in early 2001. She never returned to her village after the shooting and had to heal her wounds in the forest with almost no access to medicines. She and the people of all 12 villages in the immediate area are in hiding in the forest in various locations. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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Warning: These photos are graphic.
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| E40 | E41 | E42 | E43 |
Photos #E40, E41, E42, E43: On April 4th 2000 at 3:30 p.m., Naw L--- (age 31) and her husband Saw S--- (age 35) from xxxx village, northern Papun District, were burning off their hill field in preparation for planting season. An SPDC unit from Saw Mu Plaw camp spotted them and opened fire without warning using assault rifles and M79 grenade launchers. Naw L--- was hit by a bullet in her back which exited just below her left shoulder (see Photo #E40), and she was also hit by grenade shrapnel in the face, behind her right ear (see Photo #E41), her right breast (see Photo #E42), her thigh, ankle, and wrist. Saw S--- was wounded by a bullet or shrapnel on his back (see Photo #E43). They both tried to flee back to their house but both fell unconscious along the way. When they awoke they tried to continue, but were found by villagers who carried them the rest of the way. They are living in hiding and had no treatment except an injection 2 days later, then some bandages from mobile medics. Because of her wounds, Naw L--- cannot breastfeed or care for her smallest child; their 8-year-old has to look after the baby, and they have no milk for it so the baby is suffering and crying all the time. Less than a year earlier (in September 1999) the couple had already lost their 13-year-old daughter Naw Meh Hsah Htoo, 11-year-old son Saw Lah Kaw Mu, a 20-year-old nephew named Saw April Htoo, and Saw S---’s 43-year-old uncle Dee Wah Htoo, all of them gunned down by an SPDC unit when they were harvesting rice. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E44 | E45 | E46 | E47 |
Photos #E44, E45, E46, E47: Internally displaced children who were shot on sight and wounded by SPDC troops. Saw S--- is 9 years old and his sister Naw H--- is 5 years old. Both of them are from xxxx village (Mone township, Nyaunglebin District), but had fled into hiding in the jungle with their family because SPDC troops destroyed their village. Their only other sibling died of disease while in hiding. Then on the afternoon of March 14th 2000, a group of families were building shelters when they were discovered by a unit of Light Infantry Battalion #351 from nearby yyyy camp. Without warning, the troops opened fire with assault rifles while the villagers scattered, then began firing at them with an M79 grenade launcher. Six were wounded and two killed. Five-year-old Naw H--- was wounded in the head (see Photo #E46), and her 9-year-old brother Saw S--- was wounded in the leg (see Photo #E47), but little Naw H--- was left behind in the confusion. As a witness described it: "She [Naw H---] fainted and was left among the bullets. Nobody dared to go and get the child. At that time her father Maung J--- hurried and fled uphill with his wife. His wife was very pregnant and brought their other child [Saw S---], who was also injured. They fled among the bullets. They left their unconscious, wounded child there until that evening. At about 7 p.m. they went and got the child and brought her back. They were without hope because they were in the jungle with no medicine to heal the child. The child’s whole body was bloody. It was like she got drenched with blood." Their mother Naw L---, 30, was shot in the arm, their grandfather Maw Htoo Wah, aged about 60, was shot in the belly and the arm and died, and another elderly male relative aged 60 or 70 named Hsa Baw was also shot dead. When their grandmother went back later to the sight of the shooting, she found that the soldiers had ransacked the basket they had dropped there and stolen everything of value. Photo #E44 was taken a month after the shooting; the other 3 photos were taken a year later in April 2001, but Naw H---’s wound still hadn’t healed properly. All of the villagers are still living in hiding and have little or no access to medicines. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E49 | E50 |
Photos #E49, E50: Saw K---, 16 years old, with his mother and sister. They are from xxxx village in Papun District but are living displaced in the forest. On March 28th 2000, an SPDC patrol sighted Saw K--- and shot him. The bullet hit the right side of his chest and exited through his back. When this photo was taken in April 2001, the wound appeared well healed but Saw K--- said he still suffers a lot of pain from it. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| E51 | E52 | E53 |
Photos #E51, E52, E53: Two women and a boy shot by SPDC troops in xxxx area, Papun District. Naw B---, age 60 (Photo #E51, left), was weeding her rice field when she was shot on sight by an SPDC patrol and wounded in her foot. SPDC troops also shot and wounded her sister Naw P--- at the same time, and they shot and killed her son Saw Paw Htoo, age 22, on a separate occasion. In March 2000, another SPDC patrol shot on sight Naw N---, age 41 (Photo #E51, right) when she was clearing a hill field for planting. She was shot in the thigh (Photo #E52 shows her wound). At the time she was with her relative Saw M---, age 70, and her grandson Saw K---, a 6 year old boy, both of whom were also shot and wounded; Saw K--- shows his wound in Photo #E53. The three of them managed to get away, but Naw N--- says the troops looted the belongings they left behind, and that she suffered terribly while the wound was healing. All of these villagers are now living in hiding in the hills. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| D11 |
Photo #D11: Naw P---, age 27 and married with one child, from xxxx village in southern Papun District. On April 11th 2000, she was at home with her small son when an SPDC unit from Light Infantry Battalion #xxx came and arrested her and her 6-year-old son. They tied both of their hands and then tied the two of them together, shaved her head and said that her husband had been with a KNLA group that ambushed an SPDC truck killing 3 women, even though no such attack had happened. They sent her hair and an earring to the village head with an order to forward it to her husband (with the idea that her husband would then come and surrender; her husband, a former DKBA soldier, is now connected to the village militia formed by the KNLA). She and her son were detained for 3 days at xxxx without any food whatsoever, their hands tied the whole time, and then were taken to another village and tied and detained there; Naw P--- says that the soldiers untied only one of her hands for the journey, and she had to carry her son the whole way. When they arrived, she and her son were tied under a house for another 3 to 4 days, during which the commander ordered that she be given no food and no chance to take a bath. However, she says his soldiers pitied her and some of them sneaked her some food at night. They were finally released after a local Buddhist monk had pleaded for their release. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A63 |
Photo #A63: Saw T---, 40, from xxxx village in Papun District. On February 27th 2001 he was in his house with his wife who had just given birth, when an SPDC column arrived and ordered him to show them to the headman’s house. When they got there the troops detained him, and the next morning he was forced to go with them as a porter. They said it would be 3 or 4 days, but 20 days later he still hadn’t been released, and when he protested they said he would be kept for a month. He was forced to carry heavy baskets of bullets, cookpots and rice and was closely guarded at all times. He was finally released when his village head came to plead for him. This was not his first experience of SPDC brutality - one evening in 2000 he was with his family in their farmfield hut when SPDC troops opened fire on them without warning, killing his 6 year old son and one of his nieces and wounding Saw T--- (in the back), his wife, their infant child, one of their daughters (in her leg), and Saw T---’s brother. He says that this year the SPDC has demanded cash compensation of 5,000 Kyat for a gun they lost, and regularly demands porters, forced labour messengers and other labour, and extortion money. He says "If we don’t pay and do it for them, they will come to burn our village and drive us out". [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| D14 |
Photo #D14: Saw T--- from xxxx area, Papun District. Saw T--- was stopped on a path with his friend Saw Y--- (age 35) by Light Infantry Battalion #xxx troops on June 6th 2000. Even though Saw T--- is 74 years old, they tied him up, beat him and accused him and his friend of planting landmines. The troops then forced the two men to go along with them. Along the way they saw 3 villagers and shot at them, killing a 70 year old man named Pa Nyunt though his companions, a woman and a boy, escaped. Later the column captured and detained a couple and their two small children and also took them along. Later they shot dead another villager they saw, 20-year-old Saw Pweh Kaw Mu. The prisoners were force-marched through the night, even though Saw T--- says he is too old to see in the dark and kept stumbling off the path. Finally the next morning, Saw T--- and the other men were released, but the troops continued to hold the woman, Naw S--- (age 33), and her two small children, telling Saw T--- and the others that if they were ambushed or encountered landmines along their way they would kill Naw S--- and her children. She and her children were later released. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| D25 |
Photo #D25: Saw T---, a 70-year-old man from xxxx village, Papun District. He was living in hiding in the forest in fear of SPDC troops when a large SPDC column came upon his family and opened fire, wounding him in the left arm. An officer then interrogated him while beating him with a bamboo pole, and force-marched Saw T--- along with his 7 children and grandchildren to the Army camp at the relocation village of Meh Way, along the way forcing him to carry loads and occasionally beating him and interrogating him about other villagers in hiding. On arrival at Meh Way they locked him in leg stocks at the Army camp for a day while his family slept on the ground beside him. The next day they released him to stay in the relocation site but provided nothing, so Saw T--- and his family fled back into the hills where they are now living in hiding again. [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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| 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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| E56 |
Photo #E56: Naw P---, 31, from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township, Papun District. In July 2000, an SPDC column of Light Infantry Battalion #2 came into the area of their village so they fled into the forest with the other villagers. On July 27th Naw P---’s husband Saw Bweh returned to their farmfield hut to fetch their sack of rice, some money and other belongings which were all they had. The villagers heard 4 shots in the distance. Later they found his body on the path, with a bullet wound in his chest - it appeared that the SPDC troops had left him there, and he had tried to crawl towards a stream. Naw P--- is now left with their 3-year-old child shown in the photo; their other child already died, her mother died when she was 9, and her father was killed by Burmese troops when he was portering for them in 1991. She now stays in the forest with her aunt. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E57 |
Photo #E57: Naw P---, age 40, with her 6 year old daughter and 2 year old son. They are from xxxx village, Dweh Loh township, Papun District, but they fled and no longer live in the village. On July 15th 2000, her husband Kyi Oo Pa was in a farmfield hut when SPDC troops suddenly surrounded it and opened fire, killing both him and his friend Saw Pa Htoo. Naw P--- must now care for her family alone while also being on the run from SPDC troops. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E59 |
Photo #E59: Naw R--- from xxxx village, Papun District, and her two children. In January 2000 her husband Pa Y---, 45, was arrested by SPDC troops, accused of having contacts with the resistance, and summarily executed along with 3 other men from the village. None of the 4 men were guilty, and only one of them had a son in the resistance. Three of them had wives and small children. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| E64 |
Photo #E64: Naw P--- and her four children aged 2 to 15, from xxxx village near the Sittaung River in yyyy township, Nyaunglebin District. Her husband Saw aaaa was in the logging business but got into a business dispute with the local SPDC, probably refusing to give them a sufficient cut of the business. In March 1999 he was taken away by Sergeant bbbb’s section of the Sa Thon Lon execution squads, who beat him, stabbed him, cut off his tongue with a knife then shot him dead. His wife is now left to support the children by herself. [Photo: 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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| E65 | E66 | E67 | E68 |
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| E69 | E70 | E71 |
Photos #E65, E66, E67, E68, E69, E70, E71: Widows of Papun District. Taken in April 2001, these are just a few of the hundreds of women whose husbands have been killed by SPDC troops since the SPDC began operations to depopulate the Papun hills in 1997. Of those shown in the photographs, 4 were widowed when SPDC patrols shot their husbands on sight, while the other 3 lost their husbands to landmines. Not only do they have to raise their children alone, but all of them are internally displaced and must still run whenever SPDC troops enter their area. [Photos: 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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| F44 |
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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| 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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| F25 |
Photo #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. [Photo: 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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| 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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| B4 |
Photo #B4: Saw B---, age 50 (back, second from right), and his family, from xxxx village in xxxx village tract, northern Papun District. In October 1998 SPDC troops came to relocate his village and captured the whole family as well as some of the other villagers, totalling 16 people aged from 1 year to 67 years. They beat and interrogated Saw B---, then force-marched all 16 people to Mu Theh, an SPDC LIB #349 Army camp along the new Kyauk Kyi - Saw Hta road. The family was forced to settle there. For the first 3 months they were given some food, but after that they were told to find food for themselves. They were constantly forced to do labour making thatch, cutting and hauling logs and bamboo for the Army camp, and were forced to carry Army supplies to Maw Kyaw Ko at the top of La Lah mountain once every week. Every day the relocated villagers also had to send 3 people for forced labour sentry duty. While they were there, the Mu Theh villagers were selling some food to the people in hiding in the hills, and when the SPDC found out about this they executed village headman Pa Baw, who left a wife and two children. Eventually Saw B---’s family couldn’t bear the conditions anymore so they fled back into the hills, but they couldn’t dare go back to their village so they now live in the forest with other displaced villagers. This photo was taken in April 2001. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| F30 |
Photo #F30: Internally displaced children from T--- village in the forest in Papun District, April 2001. [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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| F34 |
Photos #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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| 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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| F37 |
Photo #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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| 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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| F63 | F66 | F67 |
Photos #F63, F66, F67: Children 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. 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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| F53 | F55 |
Photos #F53, 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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| F58 |
Photo #F58: Internally displaced Karen children joke around in the forest in Nyaunglebin District in March 2001 after fleeing SPDC troops who came and occupied the area around their villages in late February 2001. 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. [Photo: 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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| F47 | F48 | F49 |
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| F50 | F51 |
Photos #F47, F48, F49, F50, F51: 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 and F48) 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. [Photos: 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 | F80 | F82 |
Photos #F78, F80, F82: 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 F82 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 |
Photos #F90, F91, F92: 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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| 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 |
Photo #F100: A displaced family from K--- village in Nyaunglebin District. They fled after SPDC troops camped around their villages in late 2000 and began shooting villagers on sight during the rice harvest. Several months of climbing mountains and being always on the run followed. When these photos were taken in March 2001, they were still in hiding in the forest, and they remain so. [Photo: 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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| 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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| 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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| 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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| 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]
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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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| 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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| 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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| A46 |
Photo #A46: A health clinic in Kya Ka Chaung village, Kya In Seik Gyi township, Dooplaya District, which the Army forced the villagers to build at their own expense in 1997. Money was probably provided for the project, but the Army officers kept it and simply ordered the villagers to provide the materials and do all the work. Once clinics like this are built, villagers must pay for medicines and treatment, and the doctors often leave after a few months never to return. The same villagers were also forced to build a school with their own materials and labour. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| A42 | A43 |
Photos #A42, A43: Each villager carries their one or two planks, as ordered by the SPDC, to the forced labour site where they are to build a large primary school in xxxx village, xxxx Township, Thaton District. Photo #A43 shows the building work half-completed in May 2001. While the villagers are forced to build these schools and provide the materials, they are also forced to pay extortion money in the name of the school project, most of which goes into the pockets of the SPDC authorities. Once the school is finished, they are forced to pay for the teachers and teaching materials and pay fees to send their children to the school, where Karen language is forbidden and a strictly SPDC-controlled curriculum must be taught. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| F152 |
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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| 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]
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| H1 |
Photo #H1: A 15-year-old SPDC soldier who deserted from LIB #xxx in xxxx District in March 2001. In October 2000, he was in 5th Standard (Grade 5) at middle school when an Army Corporal forced him to leave his mid-term exams and ‘sold’ him to an Army recruiting centre for money. After a few months training he was sent to the frontline, but was not even strong enough to pull the bolt on his G3 assault rifle - "The Corporal had to do it for me". He says he was constantly beaten by the officers and NCOs because he wasn’t strong enough to carry his backpack and couldn’t keep up, so after only a few days at the frontline camp he fled. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| H2 |
Photo #H2: Deserter from the SPDC Army Ko H---, 23, gives testimony of his experience after reaching a refugee camp in Thailand in May 2001. Ko H--- says he was at a teashop in Rangoon with friends at 9 p.m. one evening in May 2000 when suddenly the lights were doused, an Army truck pulled up and all the men and boys were forced onto the truck. Later all those over 30 were released, but all those aged 14 to 30 were told that "If you do not become a soldier we will accuse you under any political article and put you in prison". Afraid of imprisonment, he and the others joined. After training he was assigned to #xx Infantry Battalion and sent to xxxx District. "When I arrived at the #xx IB camp they ordered us, ‘If you see any men along the path shoot and kill them all.’ They said all the people in the jungle are rebels and that we must kill them, shoot and kill them all with our guns. ‘There are no friends - only our Army troops are your friend, all the rest are rebels’." He says his fellow soldiers ranged in age from 13 to 26, and that the four or five 13-year-olds in his platoon were constantly used for forced labour by the officers because they couldn’t do proper soldiering, that they cried often and wanted to go home. Ko H--- fell sick in February 2001, so he fell and spilled some of a sack of rice he was carrying with the Column, causing the NCOs to punch, kick, and beat him with bamboo sticks all over the body and face until his mouth was bleeding. After this he fled at the first opportunity. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
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| H4 | H5 |
Photo #H4, H5: Z--- (left), age 17, and W--- (right), age 19, two SPDC soldiers who fled Light Infantry Battalion #xxx in xxxx District in March 2001. When W--- was a 14 year old schoolboy in August 1995, he went to visit his Aunt in Rangoon but was grabbed by soldiers and police the moment he stepped off the train in Rangoon station, and was told that if he didn’t join the Army they would send him to prison. He says he told them he was a student but they refused to listen, and he was forced into the Army where he remained for over 5 years. Z--- was also 14 when he was forced into the Army in 1998; he was grabbed after his 3rd Standard (Grade 3) midterm exams when he was visiting his Aunt, and says he is sad that he never got to go back to school. Z--- and W--- say they fled the Army together because their commander stole most of their salaries and beat them and tortured them every time he got drunk, which was often. Photo #H5 shows Z--- with his G3 assault rifle. [Photos: KHRG researcher]
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| H7 |
Photo #H7: A KNLA patrol in Papun District, including two child soldiers (second and fourth from left). Though the KNLA has stopped actively recruiting or conscripting child soldiers, there are still quite a few in the ranks. [Photo: KHRG researcher]
Forced
Labour / Forced Relocation & Restrictions
/ Attacks on Villages
Detention & Torture / Shootings & Killings / Flight
& Displacement
Landmines / Soldiers
/ Children