Thread by @ThomasVLinge

I just came back a trip around the resistance territories of southern Karenni state (Myanmar).

During my time I went to the frontlines, visited IDP camps in the jungles, stayed the night at an abandoned junta base, met resistance fighters, refugees and community leaders.

🧵:

Karenni state (also known as Kayah state) as around the size of Qatar, which makes it the smallest of Myanmar's different states and regions.

Yet because of its proximity to the capital Naypyidaw (120 km) it is still a very strategic region.

After three years of anti-coup resistance and armed struggle around 90% of Karenni is under resistance control.

Karenni is divided into 7 townships: Loikaw (capital), Demoso, Hpruso, Bawlakhe, Hpasawng, Shadaw, Mese.

Mese and Shadaw are fully liberated, in Hpasawng and Bawlakhe only 4 junta bases remain, including the hill with the white building in Hpasawng pictured here.

There are more junta positions in Hpruso, Demoso and Loikaw,but those have been surrounded as well.

Mese was fully liberated in junta of 2023. Normality has somewhat returned to this border village. Refugees seek refuge here, shops are open, nee homes are being build.

But normality is not the same as peaceful. Junta warplanes regularly fly over, chasing residents to the border

When Mese was taken the junta fought a last stand at the local police station.

The building has since been destroyed, the prison cells torn apart.

The writings of political prisoners can however still be found on the cell walls, including the number of days they were locked up.

When entering Karenni you notice how intimately the different groups work together. There's KNDF, Karenni Army, KNPLF, HPDF, BPDF, LPDF. The border checkpoint I saw was guarded by four men from four different groups

There are many Karenni factions but there is zero factionalism

The men I traveled with belonged to the Bawlakhe People's Defense Force (BPDF). They're all locals from the town of Bawlakhe in southern Karenni, fighting to reclaim their homes which are currently being occupied by junta forces holding the town.

Normality might have returned to Mese but the same can not be said for the nearby village of Panti Sakan.

Following their defeat in Mese, junta forces burned down this village in retaliation, driving out its people. Residents that tried to return days later were shot.

Despite the junta's brutal retaliation tactics the resistance continues to push across the Karenni state.

The bridge over the Salween river, south of Hpasawng was taken in February, pushing junta forces from their last position on the riverbank.

With the junta still maintaining a couple of bases along the main road of Karenni, the Salween river functions as the resistance's highway.

During the early afternoon the heat is intense, but once the sun starts to set, it is one of the most beautiful sights imaginable.

In the jungles further north in Karenni state, I witnessed the resistance's military infrastructure, build without any actual infrastructure. Drone cells, radio positions and a kitchen for the fighters all operate out in nature under the cover of the thick forest foliage.

But despite these minimalistic facilities the resistance still managed to advance in this region as well. A couple weeks ago they took the 12 Miles military base.

To the fighters of BPDF this battle was personal, as it was one of the last obstacles on the road to Bawlakhe.

"It was love at first sight"

"Why you are so good for me"

"I love everything about you"

Love letters written by BPDF resistance fighters on the burned out bunker walls of the 12 Miles junta base in Karenni state.

Down in the valleys, thousands of refugees stay in bamboo huts and makeshift homes, where they've come after the villages were burned down or bombed by the junta. Here they're protected by the resistance

They don't receive any support from the UN or international organizations

Right now they're managing thanks to the donations from generous diaspora abroad and local initiatives.

But I fear for them when the rainy season starts. Once it starts to pour the camp will turn into a mud pool. The houses are not waterproof and malaria will be rampant

The village of Wan Aung in southern Karenni has also been turned into a ghost town. Its people fled the brutal junta artillery strikes, which burned homes and hit the local monastery.

Goats and pigs now roam the abandoned streets.

The frontline in Hpasawng is only a couple kms from Wan Aung. At night we could here the gunfire and shelling.

According to the resistance the junta forces in Hpasawng would open fire at night under cover of darkness, in a desperate attempt to keep the resistance at a distance.

The destruction in Wan Aung was bad, but here in the village of Par Pu, just to the north or Hpasawng, it was total.

The junta's scorched earth strategy destroyed dozens of villages like this across Karenni state and wider Myanmar. Entire communities uprooted, maybe forever.

In the town of Hpasawng the destruction is also immense. Entire city blocks have been raised to the ground by junta artillery and airstrikes.

Karenni resistance groups now dominate the streets.

We could walk the streets of Hpasawng relatively freely, but had to be mindful of the junta forces, held up at their hilltop base on the edge of town.

Resistance forces assured us the junta soldiers don't come out at day as they'd risk being exposed, so they fight at night.

At the forward resistance base in Hpasawng we again so how closely the difference Karenni groups work together, sharing the same hammocks, meals and supplies.

The got the junta contained in their base and have enough men to storm it. But they lack the ammo for a final push.