In Pekhon, on the Shan side of the Karenni–Shan border, an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp sprawls along both sides of a valley, with families living in houses made of bamboo and plastic tarps, integrated into the jungle and terraced up the side of the mountain. Stair steps are cut into the earth, but in the rainy season they turn to mud and slide down the slopes, making movement from house to house difficult, dirty, and wet.
The valley has only one way in, a long dirt road about forty minutes’ drive from the nearest pavement. The remoteness and the thick jungle canopy are the only reasons the inhabitants are still alive. The camp is difficult to spot from the air, and it would be hard for jets to dive at the right angle to bomb it as they did the camp where most of the residents previously lived.
Drones, however, are another story. If government forces discover the camp, they could wreak havoc with drones or send soldiers down the single access road, killing unarmed civilians at will, something this community has already experienced. They have been displaced multiple times, first driven from their homes, then from one camp after another as the Burma army and its ethnic allies, the Pa-O National Army, terrorized civilians.
The camp’s population is in the low thousands, underscoring how badly Burma’s ongoing war has affected this region along the Shan–Karenni border. In a recent nearby battle, fourteen thousand people were displaced in a single day. Nearly every IDP camp in the region has the same story: it used to be somewhere else but had to relocate because of Burma army attacks.
Water is scarce. The only source is a small stream far from the homes. Residents carry plastic bottles and jugs up and down steep terrain to collect small amounts of water and gather firewood to cook what little food they have. IDP camps receive no support or protection from the UN and must depend on limited assistance from private charities and churches.
As desperate as the situation is, this camp has a rare resource: Paula, the principal of the camp school. Despite shortages or the complete absence of nearly every resource, she built one of the best schools in the state. Even children from non-displaced families come to study there.
The classrooms have whiteboards. One bamboo-and-plastic classroom has two rows of computers, and another has a smart screen. All of the books, however, are photocopied, requiring long trips to make copies.
Principal Paula ensured that students have classes in English and Japanese, as well as science, math, and their mother tongue. Many parents choose resistance-controlled schools to avoid government propaganda and to ensure their children are literate in their home language as well as Burmese.
Her thirty years of experience before the revolution are evident. Everyone I spoke to, from students to teachers to the priest chaplain, respected her and credited her with building a strong school out of nothing.
The school’s English teacher, Edward, gave me background on the school. While he was speaking, I noticed that on one plastic wall a student had written, “If the world was ending I want to be next.” Edward said he encourages students to write whatever they feel to help them cope with war and displacement.
Another student wrote, “Dad is my hero, Mom is my life, he is my energy.” These lines were written in English. Edward pointed to one written in Burmese and translated it: “Although I live in my country, I miss my country.” The sentence captures the essence of displacement, being targeted by your own government despite having done nothing wrong.
In my interviews, I found that most students, in addition to losing their homes, had lost family members and friends to government bombs. One teacher lost his wife and child in the same airstrike. His remaining daughter, age 12, is alive, but he cannot reach her. She had been attending school in a government-controlled area, and it is now too dangerous for him to return. She is too young to travel alone, so they remain separated. She has lost her mother and brother and cannot see her father. He sits alone each night in his hut with memories of the time before the coup, when his family was whole.
Burma has 135 ethnic groups. The largest, the Bamar, control the military and the government. Most of the population is Buddhist, but some ethnic minorities are Christian. Karenni State is home to about seven related ethnic groups, most of whom are Christian, with Catholics forming the majority. This part of Shan State is inhabited by Karenni people and once belonged to Karenni State. Most students in the camp are Karenni and Catholic, although Edward emphasized that the school accepts students of all ethnicities and religions. As a result, there are nearly as many Buddhists as Christians.
“It’s okay if they come from the war,” Edward said, explaining that they even accept students whose families have not yet been displaced. Everyone is suffering in this war. Even children outside the camps endured school closures and a forced shift to Burmese propaganda without instruction in their mother tongue.
Their parents, including those still in their homes, suffered from joblessness and the collapse of the Burmese economy. They also endure periodic airstrikes.
“About half of the students are on scholarship because their parents can’t pay,” Edward said. The school tries to provide two meals per day, but “sometimes the school has no money for food, so we have to go house to house for donations.”
Edward told me the plastic tarps must be replaced once a year. “So that’s a bit of a burden until we can build permanent roofs and permanent walls,” he said.
Across Karenni State and Karenni areas of Shan State, most IDP homes are made of green plastic tarps. Nearly all came from the Free Burma Rangers. David Eubank, the group’s founder and leader, told me he has distributed tens of thousands since the coup. When the Rangers visit villages and camps, he asks what people need most. Spending time with the Rangers, the two most common requests I witnessed were vehicles and more tarps. Other frequent requests included solar panels, water pumps, and Starlink.
The list reveals what displacement truly means and how the war has pushed much of the region back to preindustrial conditions without electricity or running water. A plastic tarp costing only a few dollars has become an aspirational purchase for 80 percent of Karenni State and more than four million displaced people nationwide.
They were meant as temporary shelter. No one expected the war to last this long or that five years later families would still live beneath them. Sometimes a newer tarp is layered over an older one. In many cases, however, families are left with a single shredded sheet that lets in rain and wind.
Five years into the coup, the tarps are fading. Six cohorts of high school students have turned eighteen and either joined the resistance or joined their parents in IDP camps. The lucky ones find volunteer work with the civil administration. A precious few continue their education. Every student I interviewed seemed bright, polite, and determined. All wanted further study. Most said it would likely be impossible for lack of funds.
Antonio Graceffo is an economist and China expert who has reported extensively on Burma.
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