🔗 Share this article

In the dead of night last month, a woman was startled by blasts in a adjacent village, followed by fighter jets soaring above. She dashed from her home to see plumes of smoke in the distance.

"We were petrified. We feared the military's aircraft might attack us too. So we took what we could carry – some food and clothes and ran into the woodlands around our village."

She visibly shakes as she tells the account of what transpired on 26 November in her village, located in Myanmar's western Chin area. She is one of countless residents who've abandoned their homes in the past few weeks after the Myanmar army launched a fierce campaign of aerial attacks, coupled with a land assault in insurgent-controlled zones across the country.

Some from Chin state have described the regime's newest campaign as the most brutal it has launched in the past three years. A large number of those uprooted have looked for safety in different areas of the state. Iang belongs to a group that crossed the border into Mizoram in India. Now housed in a rundown badminton court in Vaphai, the group's few belongings they were able to carry are stored in plastic sacks.

Ral Uk Thang has had to abandon his residence at the age of 80, residing in temporary huts in the wilderness for days, before finally reaching a secure location.

"We're afraid of our own government. They are exceptionally brutal. Their military has entered our and other villages in the past, they've arrested people, tortured them, and set houses ablaze," he says.

It isn't easy to speak to Burmese civilians openly. Myanmar's regime restricts open movement in the country for overseas correspondents. It assumed power in the country in a military takeover in February 2021, soon after the last election.

Humanitarian Toll and Deliberate Strikes

In its most recent campaign, the junta last week attacked a medical facility in Rakhine State. Resistance organizations in Rakhine claim at least 30 people were killed and more than 70 injured.

A monitoring body says that over recent months at least multiple schools and a number of places of worship in Chin State have been hit by regime air raids, claiming the lives of 12 people including six children.

Reports indicate the shelling of a school in a community on 13 October. Two students lost their lives as they were studying. The bombs ripped through their classrooms injuring more than a dozen other students.

This is the second time, a father and his small family – a wife and two young children - have been displaced. Back in 2021, following the coup, their home was destroyed by fire in an air strike. They rebuilt their lives in a new community. Now they're homeless again.

"Words fail me to explain how difficult and traumatic it is and what a heart-wrenching call it was to make to leave. But we had to do it to stay alive," he says.

A Disputed Election

The National League for Democracy party, which won landslides in the two elections preceding the coup, is not participating as its key figures are imprisoned.

"We don't want the election. Because the military does not know how to govern our country. They only work for the interest of their top officials. When the previous government was in power, we experienced a bit of democracy. But now all we do is cry and shed tears," says the elderly man.

Iang Za Kim believes the election will be fixed. "If we participated for a party not allied with the military, I believe they will falsify the outcome and claim we voted for them."

The poll will occur in phases, with a result expected around the end of January. Resistance forces have labeled it a sham.

Insurgent Battleground and Sacrifices

At a base of a key resistance organization operating in the state, a vice chairman states: "This vote is only being held to perpetuate military dictatorship. It's not about the public's voice."

He highlights the areas where the heaviest clashes is continuing. "There are columns of hundreds of soldiers trying to enter the northern part of Chin state from several axes," he says. "The soldiers are being backed up by air strikes, artillery fire and by drone units."

Access to such bases is highly unusual. Set amid dense jungle highlands, it is the heart of the resistance against the junta in Chin state.

Within a clinic at the base, several injured fighters had arrived overnight and had to undergo extensive medical procedures. Some of them have had to undergo limb removals.

A significant number were just teenagers when the coup occurred in 2021. Recently come of age, they've set aside their dreams to engage in combat against the junta.

"As the enemy was retreating we ran forward and I detonated a landmine. We were injured in the explosion. Then we were targeted by aircraft. The airstrikes make things very hard for us," states a wounded rebel. "Despite my injury, even if I've to give up my life I'm happy to make the sacrifice so that those who follow have a better life."

The consequence of the brutality of the ongoing operation is apparent in every corner at the hospital.

Yet, it's the backing and courage of tens of thousands of youngsters who joined the fight that have helped the rebels make rapid advances against a far stronger rival.

Some like 80-year-old Ral Uk Thang hope that post-poll, the junta will retreat, and he will be able to return home.

"But I don't think I will live to see democracy reinstated in Myanmar," he says. "I pray my children and grandchildren can see it some day."