For IDPs near Naypyitaw, a life in limbo

Htay found it impossible to relax as her two young children played in the tiny yard where she was cooking their dinner. She knew from experience just how suddenly this ordinary moment could end with them all fleeing in terror. As one of more than 4,000 villagers displaced from their homes in villages east of the Sittaung River in Bago Region since mid-November, Htay had sought shelter in Yedashe, a town just 50 miles south of Naypyitaw. She and her family had managed to escape after fighting broke out, but tragedy still struck when her husband decided to return to their home village to recover some valuables they had buried there to prevent them being looted by junta soldiers. “He took a route that would enable him to avoid the military, but then he stepped on a landmine and died. We didn’t even get his body back,” she said. Like many who have found themselves caught in the middle of the conflict between Myanmar’s military and anti-regime forces, Htay’s husband felt that he could not afford to abandon his home entirely. Others have also gone back to protect their property, often risking their lives to do so. According to Htay, not even backers of the junta have been spared. In Inn Gyi Pauk, one of the affected villages, a wealthy family was robbed of gold and some 10 million kyat in cash, she said, even though they supported the regime. Enraged by this predatory behaviour, the family’s eldest son joined the resistance, she added. Battles have been breaking out continuously between the two sides in recent months, with the military routinely resorting to airstrikes and heavy artillery fire to repel anti-junta fighters based in the Bago Yoma mountain range east of the Sittaung River. Hundreds are believed to have infiltrated villages in the river basin, raising fears in Naypyitaw that the movement to oust the regime is moving ever closer to its centre of power. Some villages, including Inn Gyi Pauk, Na Kyat, and Si Paing, are now deserted, according to residents. But at least half a dozen others are still partly populated, in many cases by villagers who return to tend to their fields to preserve their livelihoods as farmers. “We have to go back to our farms whenever the fighting stops. We don’t have the luxury of choice,” said one woman currently living in Swar, a town on the road to Naypyitaw about 10 miles north of Yedashe. The woman, who is supported by adult children who have taken various jobs in town to bring in some money, said they all watch in horror as artillery shells, fired by troops from Infantry Battalion 604 in Yedashe or Light Infantry Battalion 19 in Swar, fly towards their home village. “It’s absolutely terrifying for me and my children to see those shells flying through the air with that hissing noise that they make,” she said. Children from an IDP camp in Demoso Township, Karenni State, in October 2023 (AFP) Self-supporting IDPs According to the latest figures compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are currently more than 2.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar, including some 660,000 forced to flee since the start of a major anti-junta offensive in northern Shan State in late October. The UN agency says that US$994 million is needed to assist these IDPs, but acknowledges that fighting and regime-imposed restrictions complicate efforts to provide aid. In the area south of Naypyitaw, residents have had to rely on their own resources—or their willingness to take tremendous chances with their safety—to support themselves. Locals say that fighting breaks out only sporadically, when resistance forces stationed in the nearby hills come down to attack junta columns. The regime soldiers are especially brutal when they suffer casualties, according to residents. “They ransack people’s houses, pointing their guns at them with the safety latches off and forcing them to lie face down on the ground while they search for weapons,” said one woman who witnessed such a scene herself. IDPs in northern Shan State in November 2023 (Myanmar Now) Even those who have not been subjected to this treatment have good reason to be reluctant to return to their homes. Junta shelling and airstrikes, aimed at villages suspected of harbouring People’s Defence Force (PDF) troops and other anti-junta fighters, have already claimed many civilian lives. “They say they’re targeting the PDF, but their shells only ever hit and kill local people,” said an IDP man who did not want to be identified. “This is why all of the monasteries around here are full of people seeking shelter,” he added. A woman from Yedashe Lay, another affected village, told Myanmar Now that several houses had been destroyed there and elsewhere in the area. “The shelling and gunfire was relentless. We had to get out or lose our lives,” she said. While some IDPs are wealthy enough to rent or even buy property in town, the vast majority are left to huddle together in monasteries. Whenever lulls in the fighting permit, they are among the first to return to their villages. IDPs from Pauktaw Township, Rakhine State, take shelter inside a monastery in November 2023 (AFP) Disrupted lives Yedashe and Swar townships, as well as Taungoo Township to the south, all border Karen (Kayin) State and are considered to be the territory of Brigade 2 of the Karen National Union (KNU). PDF forces allied to the KNU have also been active there since the February 2021 coup. With the coup approaching its third anniversary, countless lives have been upturned in Myanmar, affecting people from all walks of life and of all ages. But it is perhaps among the young in rural parts of the country that life has been most radically altered. For the very young—those still of school age—there has been a prolonged disruption of their education. Schools in villages along the Sittaung River that once had hundreds of students now have a few dozen, at most, according to local educators. While they strive to remain open for the sake of those who have nowhere else to go, school administrators say they must remain constantly mindful of the danger they face from airstrikes and other indiscriminate attacks. “Every time there’s a clash, we close the school for a week,” said one teacher, explaining that the worst destruction often follows in the wake of fighting on the ground. Mandalay PDF troops in northern Shan State in December 2023 (AFP) Those who can send their children away to study in urban areas, where they live in dormitories and are separated from their parents for prolonged periods of time. Others struggling just to survive will sometimes take more desperate measures: Oo, an IDP in Yedashe whose son is in the 11th grade, told Myanmar Now that he had no choice but to send him to neighbouring Thailand to find work. For those old enough, there is also a third option—joining the anti-junta resistance movement. This has been the choice of many young people who have lived through the military’s assaults on their communities. “Hundreds of youths have joined anti-regime groups after a lot of people died during military raids,” said the mother of a young man who is now fighting the junta. The woman, who works in Malaysia, said she wanted her son to join her there, but could not dissuade him from taking up arms against a regime that has inflicted so much suffering on her family and the whole country. “I used to worry about him a lot, but now I just try to meditate on the fact that even if he dies in battle, he will have died fighting injustice, so I am happy about that,” she said. Meanwhile, many others who simply want to return to their old lives also find themselves contemplating death. “I just want to go back to my village. Even if I have to die there, I want to die in my own home,” said one IDP woman.

For IDPs near Naypyitaw, a life in limbo

Villagers living in the shadow of the junta’s capital try to stay close to home, even as airstrikes and artillery fire remain a constant threat

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