Two orphaned sisters. Last year, the junta took their family and their home. This week, government jets destroyed the home where a villager had taken them in. The conflict now covers 60% to 80% of Burma’s total land mass. The UN and most international aid organizations provide aid only in areas where the junta grants permission. As a result, Free Burma Rangers (FBR) is one of the few small Christian aid organizations providing help, hope, and relief to the displaced. Photo courtesy of Free Burma Rangers (FBR).

When they heard the jets overhead, two sisters, nine-year-old Naw Eh Mu Thaw and six-year-old Naw Ler Pwe Paw, fled into the jungle, a survival mechanism they have developed after five years of war that has consumed most of their lives.

Last year, the Burma (Myanmar) army killed their father, while their mother died of malaria. Although disease is a natural part of life, the war has turned even common illnesses and infections into life-threatening tragedies. Shortages of medicine and doctors have made it difficult for people to obtain even basic medical care. In Karenni State, for example, there are only two functioning hospitals. In neighboring Karen State, where the two girls are from, the sick, the wounded, and their families must walk for days to reach the region’s only functioning surgical hospital.

After their parents’ deaths, the two girls were taken in by a kind family in Pah Lo Poe village in Papun, Karen State, a heavily contested battlefield where resistance armies and government forces have been fighting an asymmetric war for the past two years.

The Burma conflicts date to the country’s 1948 independence, when the Karen National Union and other ethnic armies began fighting the central government over autonomy. The recent escalation began when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s military seized power in a February 1, 2021 coup, deposing the elected government. The takeover fused a new resistance, the People’s Defence Force of the National Unity Government, a parallel administration formed by the ousted civilian leadership, with the older ethnic armies already fighting the military government.

The Burma army has more guns, ammunition, drones, food, and personnel than the resistance forces, many of whom carry as few as 30 bullets into battle. Government forces are dug into heavily fortified trench lines that they can resupply by air. The resistance, by contrast, has no air power and no anti-aircraft weapons. It relies largely on homemade drones, occasional remote-controlled suicide explosive cars, and homemade Bangalore torpedoes. Each of these weapons is effective in its own right. However, the resistance lacks the numbers and firepower needed to overrun the government positions.

Capturing territory often comes at the cost of many lives. Resistance fighters may spend an entire day battling to seize a small piece of ground, only to abandon it the next day without a fight because they lack the ammunition to hold it.

The family caring for the girls is one of the few that remained in the area. Most of the villagers abandoned their homes and rice paddies to escape the ongoing Burma army airstrikes. Many have now joined the ranks of the nearly 4 million souls living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.

These camps are not protected by the UN and receive little or no international support. They are generally composed of hundreds of temporary bamboo frame houses covered with plastic tarps. Food and water are scarce, as the war has denuded forests, exacerbating runoff during the rainy season and leaving rivers dry during the hot season.

The need to relocate frequently, combined with the unnatural concentration of people in small geographic areas deemed “temporarily safe” or “relatively safe,” has prevented many of the camps from engaging in any meaningful agriculture. With little or no food being grown, the camps must buy food, but almost no one has a job or money. The result is empty bellies and untreated illnesses.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 16.2 million people, more than one-third of the country’s population, are in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. Ironically, the UN quantifies and publishes the number of people requiring aid but does little to help them. The UN also publishes data on airstrikes, landmine victims, civilian deaths, and displacement but refuses to deploy peacekeeping forces.

Families are separated as older sons and daughters may join the resistance or cross the border into Thailand in search of work. Across the country, at least 6.3 million children are now out of school. Some camps operate schools using volunteer teachers, but they lack even basic supplies, including books, paper, and pencils.

And the bombs continue to fall, with even the IDP camps frequently coming under attack.

A civilian’s home destroyed by Burma army aircraft. Two bombs struck this neighborhood only hours before this photo was taken. Photo courtesy of Free Burma Rangers (FBR).

On July 2, 2026, the Burma army bombed the house where the girls were living. Fortunately, they escaped once again. The sisters and their adopted family are now hiding in the jungle with no safe place to go.

Ad block users: Some site features may not work correctly while an ad blocker is enabled, because they break scripts and content this website depends on. If you can't see comments below, for example, please disable your ad blocker.