In rebel-held Myanmar, civilians face devastating air strikes and a sham election

Late one night last month, Iang Za Kim heard explosions in a nearby village, then fighter jets flying over his area. She ran out of her house and saw smoke rising in the distance.

“We were terrified. We thought the junta planes were going to bomb us too. So we took what we could – food and clothes and ran into the jungle surrounding our village.”

Iang’s face trembles as she recounts what happened on November 26 in K-Haimual, her village in Chin State, western Myanmar, and then she collapses.

She is one of thousands of civilians who have fled their homes in recent weeks after the Myanmar military launched a violent campaign of airstrikes and ground offensive in rebel-held areas across the country, to recapture territory ahead of elections which begin on December 28.

Four other women sitting around her on straw mats also begin to cry. The trauma of what they went through to get to safety is clearly visible.

Even though the airstrikes were the immediate cause of Iang’s flight, she also does not want to be forced to participate in the elections.

“If we are arrested and refuse to vote, they will put us in prison and torture us. We ran away so as not to have to vote,” she said.

Some residents of Chin State have described the junta’s latest offensive as the fiercest it has launched in more than three years.

Many displaced people sought shelter in other parts of the state. Iang is part of a group that crossed the border into the Indian state of Mizoram. Currently sheltered in a dilapidated badminton court in Vaphai village, the few belongings they were able to carry are packed in plastic bags.

Indian villagers gave them food and basic necessities.

Ral Uk Thang had to flee his home at the age of 80, living in makeshift shelters in the jungle for days, before finally reaching safety.

“We are afraid of our own government. They are extremely cruel. Their soldiers came to our village and others in the past, arrested people, tortured them and burned houses,” he said.

It is not easy to speak freely to Burmese civilians. Myanmar’s military government does not allow foreign journalists free access to the country. He took control of the country in a coup in February 2021, shortly after the last election, and has since been widely condemned for leading a repressive regime that indiscriminately targeted civilians as it sought to crush the armed uprising against him across Myanmar.

In its latest offensive, the junta last week targeted a hospital in Rakhine state, just south of Chin state. Rakhine rebel groups say at least 30 people have been killed and more than 70 injured.

The Chin Human Rights Organization says that since mid-September, at least three schools and six churches in Chin state have been targeted by junta airstrikes, killing 12 people, including six children.

The BBC independently verified the bombing of a school in the village of Vanha on October 13. Two students – Johan Phun Lian Cung, seven, and Zing Cer Mawi, 12 – were killed while attending classes. The bombs ripped through their classrooms, injuring more than a dozen other students.

Myanmar’s military government did not respond to the BBC’s questions about the allegations.

This is the second time Bawi Nei Lian and her young family – a wife and two young children – have been displaced. In 2021, shortly after the coup, their house in the town of Falam was burned down in an airstrike. They rebuilt their lives in the village of K-Haimual. Now they are homeless again.

“I can’t find the words to explain how painful and difficult it is and how difficult the decision to leave was to make. But we had to do it to stay alive,” he said.

“I want the world to know that what the military is claiming – that this election is free and fair – is absolutely false. When the main political party is not allowed to run in elections, how can there be true democracy?”

The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, which won a landslide victory in the two elections before the coup, will not run because most of its senior leaders, including Suu Kyi, are in prison.

“We don’t want elections. Because the military doesn’t know how to govern our country. They only work for the benefit of their top leaders. When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party was in power, we experienced some democracy. But now we just cry and shed tears,” says Ral Uk Thang.

Iang Za Kim thinks the elections will be rigged. “If we vote for a party that is not allied to the army, I believe they will steal our votes and pretend we voted for them.”

The elections will be held in stages, with a result expected towards the end of January. Rebel groups called it a sham.

At the base of the Chin National Front in Myanmar, the largest rebel group operating in the state, the group’s vice president, Sui Khar, said: “This election is only about prolonging the military dictatorship.”

It shows on a map the areas where the heaviest fighting is taking place and tells us that nearly 50 rebel fighters have been wounded in the last month alone. There have also been deaths, but so far the groups have not released figures.

“There are columns of hundreds of soldiers trying to advance into the northern part of Chin State from four directions,” says Sui Khar. “The soldiers are supported by airstrikes, artillery fire and drone units.”

Access to the base is extremely rare. Set among densely forested mountains, it is the heart of resistance against the junta in Chin State.

Sui Khar takes us to the base hospital. We see a group of wounded fighters who were brought in during the night and had to undergo hours of surgery. Some of them had to undergo amputations.

Many of them were just schoolchildren when the coup took place in 2021. Now, almost adults, they have abandoned their dreams of fighting on the front lines against the junta.

Abel, 18, is in too much pain to speak. He was part of a group of fighters trying to retake territory captured by the junta a week ago. They won the battle, but Abel lost his right leg and was also seriously injured in his hands.

In a bed next to him is Si Si Maung, 19, who also had a leg amputated.

“As the enemy was retreating, we ran forward and I stepped on a mine. We were injured in the explosion. Then we were attacked from the air. The airstrikes are making things very difficult for us,” he said. “I lost a leg, but even if I have to give up my life, I am happy to make the sacrifice so that future generations will have a better life.”

The impact of the ferocity of the latest offensive is visible in room after room of the hospital.

Yet it is the support and courage of tens of thousands of young people like Si Si Maung, who took up arms to fight the junta, that has helped the rebels make rapid progress against a much more powerful rival over the past four and a half years.

Some, like 80-year-old Ral Uk Thang, hope that after the elections the junta will step down and he will be able to return home.

“But I don’t think I will live to see democracy restored in Myanmar,” he says. “I hope my children and grandchildren can witness it one day.”

Additional reporting by Aamir Peerzada, Sanjay Ganguly and Aakriti Thapar