Antonio Graceffo
I was driving with the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a faith-based frontline aid organization, down one of the few remaining paved roads that had survived years of war. One of the Rangers in the back of the pickup truck began banging on the cab’s ceiling—a signal to pull over. The driver swerved aggressively, quickly steering the vehicle into the jungle. Once under the cover of trees, everyone jumped out and took shelter in a drainage ditch, eyes fixed on the sky. Above us, the faint sound of jets echoed as they crisscrossed over our position. “Before they attack, you’ll hear the pitch change when they dive,” a veteran soldier said. We listened in silence, but the attack never came.
In the Myanmar civil war, every rebel knows that there are no good aircraft. The resistance forces have no planes or helicopters. So, when a plane, helicopter, or drone is heard, people run for cover. The few remaining schools, temples, hospitals, and churches all have bomb shelters nearby, as do the internally displaced people’s camps, which now house about 80% of the population.
Watching the jets, which, at this point of the war are responsible for most of the casualties, it was frustrating to realize that the resistance doesn’t have a single antiaircraft gun or man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS). Government forces can fly overhead with impunity, terrorizing the population and killing at will, without any fear of counterfire.
As the jets got slightly ahead of our position, one of the soldiers shouted: “They just fired rockets.”
Given the trajectory, we assumed the target was about two kilometers down the road. In any other place, in any other war, one of the soldiers would have grabbed a radio or cell phone to call ahead and check for casualties. But after the 2021 coup, the Tatmadaw cut off the internet, cell service, and electricity across the entirety of Karenni State. Thus, the only way to find out what is actually happening is to go there.
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