They Returned Home, Landmines Were Waiting: FBR's Program to Remove Landmines in Karenni State

Free Burma Rangers ^ | 5/26/26 | Jonathan Moss

[EnderWiggin1970]

To reach the church, we walked single file. The path was narrow. On either side of us were landmines.

The Burma military had bombed the church in 2023. The roof was mostly gone. The walls were cracked and scorched. But the building was still standing, and so the people of this village in Karenni State still used the church. Not because it was safe but because it was theirs, and because there was nowhere else to go. On this day, myself and the Karenni demining team were going there to meet some survivors of landmines - the Karenni leadership had arranged this, to give us context for the work we were preparing to do.

The survivors had left their IDP camps to meet with us. Landmines had taken something from each of them. Some had lost limbs trying to go home. One had lost her husband. The injuries didn’t happen in battle. They happened on the walk back to get food.

More than 200,000 people are displaced across Karenni State. The IDP camps don’t have enough food. They haven’t had enough for a long time. At some point, hunger becomes a stronger force than fear. People calculate the odds and decide a possible mine is better than certain starvation. So they walk back to their villages, back to hidden sacks of rice and fruit trees they planted before the war forced them out. The Burma Army knows the IDPs will come back. That is why they plant mines inside homes. A mine in a field is more easily avoided than a mine in a family home or food storage site.

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TOPICS: China; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: burma; fbr; landmine; mine

[EnderWiggin1970]

Here's an example from a couple years ago:

16-year-old Boy Loses Foot to Landmine Placed in Front of Burning Karenni Church

[EnderWiggin1970]

The comments in the story about planting mines in food stores and the lack of food for people who have been forced from their homes strikes a nerve with me. A couple years ago I worked with a missionary couple in Mae Sot on the Burma/Thai border. I gave them money to buy a large quantity of rice to take to refugees hiding in the jungle in Burma. Volunteers stepped forward to take vans loaded with the rice across the border to deliver the rice to people.

Most of it was delivered successfully, but a Burmese army patrol intercepted one of the vans. They burned the van and the food. The bodies of the two young men who volunteered to distribute the rice were shot and left lying beside the torched van. I had entirely funded this project myself so this still haunts me.