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Karen Human Rights Group (www.khrg.org)

Editor's note: What follows are extracts from interviews with villagers of Papun District, Karen State, eastern Burma, on the current horrendous conditions there.


"This year we don't have enough food, because the enemy came up during the paddy harvesting time and we fled. We don't dare reap our paddy. The paddy that we did reap, they camp up and burned in our paddy barns. . Right now we can't say exactly how we are going to get food. . Right now we can't go anywhere. We are hiding, so the enemy doesn't see us, and we are borrowing food from each other. If they don't go back out of the hills in the rainy season, it will be very difficult. When the bamboo shoots come up, we must eat bamboo shoots and wild banana trees. We must mix them and eat it as 'dta ka baw' [a kind of rice porridge]. After the bamboo shoot season, we will eat 'gher mee tee' [a taro-like root]." Testimony of "Saw Maw Htoo", male, aged 31, an internally displaced villager from D--- village, Shwegyin township, interviewed February, 2000.

"The suffering endured by our people here is very hard. Every village is suffering. The enemy entered our area and tortured us hard, but we couldn't do anything. We fled to the jungle. Some people have run out of paddy and rice. We run to borrow it from other people. If we can borrow it we can eat, but if we can't then we don't eat for two or three days. The Burmese SPDC people came down and burned all our paddy and rice in our village. We have to suffer hard. We are one of the groups which has had to flee to stay in the jungle" Testimony of "Naw PAW Paw Htoo", female, aged 30, internally displaced person from K--- village, Lu-thaw township, interviewed March 2001.