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‘One Day at a Time’: Inside an IDP Camp in Myanmar, Survival Is a Daily Challenge

Some of those living in the Old Kran Khun camp were once well off. Now they forage in the fields and forests around the IDP camp for food and firewood.

Residents of the Old Kran Khun Camp IDP camp in Ponnagyun Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Sam Sam burst into tears when asked to narrate the circumstances that compelled her to become an internally displaced person (IDP). She pointed to clothes and utensils in her single-room thatched hut, the only things she could carry while fleeing her village. Then, she pulled out a tattered photograph from a bag.

“This was our home,” she said, pointing to the sprawling house in the photograph. “I never imagined that we would end up at a refugee camp someday.”

On February 6, 2024, the Myanmar military torched Kyar Ma Thout village in Sittwe township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. It has burned down several other settlements in the area in order to deprive the Arakan Army (AA) of a base in the city’s suburbs.

Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State and a military hub that houses the Regional Operations Command (ROC), is among three of 17 townships in the state that remain under the military’s control. By emptying its suburbs, the military is hoping to secure its control of the city and surrounding areas.

When Kyar Ma Thout was burnt by the military, most of its 650 residents, including Sam Sam, her husband, and two children, fled for safety in the areas under the control of the AA. About a third of the village’s residents, including a sizable number of elderly and disabled people, settled in monasteries in Sittwe city.

Sam Sam and ten other families from Kyar Ma Thout landed at the Old Kran Khun IDP Camp in Ponnagyun township about 80 kilometers to the north of Sittwe. The township was captured by the AA in mid-March of 2024 after weeks of fierce fighting with the military.

Their journey to the camp was perilous and involved travelling on the Kaladan River as well. With the arrival of IDPs from Sittwe, the camp’s population swelled to 1,643.

Old Kran Khun camp is one of 93 IDP camps scattered across AA-held areas. An estimated 100,000 people live in these camps, as per data compiled by the AA’s political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA). Another 100,000 are sheltering in monasteries and in the homes of their relatives. Those numbers could not be confirmed independently.

On February 8 this year, I visited the Old Kran Khun camp located 150 meters north of the highway between Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw. The mood there was heavy with sorrow and quiet desperation. There were around 400 huts in the camp. These were cramped and identical shelters built of straw, bamboo, and tarpaulin. The IDPs staying here are struggling to cope with myriad problems, including the loss of their traditional livelihoods, neighborhood networks, and support systems.

Maung Tin Hla was a businessman in Sittwe who relocated with his family in March of 2024 to Old Kran Khun Camp IDP camp. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

Maung Tin Hla is an affluent businessman from Ma Jay Mying (Ward No. 3) in Sittwe city. He owned five acres of land on the city’s outskirts, which was cultivated throughout the year and provided him with additional income.

Since the military’s offensives were directed at villages surrounding Sittwe, Ma Jay Mying had little reason to believe that the gun would be pointed at households like his own that were inside the city. But everything changed on March 16, 2024, when the military began targeting some localities and burning houses inside Sittwe.

Several people were arrested on suspicion of being AA functionaries. “We heard that the Arakan Liberation Party, which has joined hands with the military, had provided the military with information about some households. And I got the feeling that my name was also on the list,” Maung Tin Hla recalled.

On March 17, Maung Tin Hla began frenzied preparations to leave the village around midnight after a young man in his mid-20s was killed by the military near his residence. He hit the escape trail to the AA’s area of control with his wife and son and seven bags containing gold ornaments, money, clothes, and utensils.

After a grueling 90-km journey that lasted five days, the family reached the IDP camp in Ponnagyun township. Maung Tin Hla then purchased materials needed to build a thatched hut to shelter his family. He then arranged for food and water in the camp.

“I had around 1 million kyats (around U.S. $476), but this lasted just for a month. Then we began selling the gold ornaments. Almost half of the total amount I brought from home has been exhausted,” Maung Tin Hla said. “We can last for another year by selling whatever is left.”

Fishermen among the IDPs have been catching fish from the nearby Kaladan River and selling them for a livelihood. Others gather firewood, bamboo, and vegetables from the hills, which they consume themselves or sell in the camp and neighboring villages. But Maung Tin Hla is neither a fisherman nor is he adept at climbing the hills to gather food and firewood. His wife is busy all day with household chores and takes care of their 7-year-old son, who is enrolled in Grade 1 at a school about 2 km from the camp.

“So far, I have not been able to identify any source of income that will sustain my family,” Maung Tin Hla said. He is keeping his “fingers crossed and is hopeful of returning home soon.”

There are many like Maung Tin Hla in the Old Kran Khun camp, who have similar riches-to-rags stories to share. Their houses were either burnt by the military or destroyed by shelling. Forced to flee their villages, they are now sheltering in the IDP camp and are foraging forests and hills for food and firewood.

Firewood put up for sale by a household in the Old Kran Khun Camp IDP camp in Ponnagyun Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

Hills Emerge as a Savior

The daily itinerary in the IDP camp is dictated by scarcity. Long before sunrise, residents begin preparations to search for food and livelihood. Many embark on an 8-km trek to the hills that lie to the west of the camp.  They return by noon with whatever vegetables and firewood they could lay their hands on.

For Maung Aye Tun and his 14-year-old son, going to the hills has been a daily routine ever since they arrived at the camp from Mrit Nar village in Sittwe township two years ago, after it was burned by the military. “The hills are getting depleted owing to the unrestrained scavenging by camp inmates over the past three years,” he lamented.

“Now more effort is required to gather vegetables and firewood compared to the situation two years ago.  We have to go deeper into the hills every day. And there is no certainty that the same quantity of food and firewood can be fetched daily,” Maung Aye Tun said. Alarmed over the rapid deforestation of the hills, the ULA imposed restrictions five months ago on logging.

The daily expenditure on food alone for Maung Aye Tun’s family of four, including his wife and two children, is around 60,000 kyats. But his daily income from selling vegetables and firewood sometimes does not exceed 10,000 kyats. Whatever is earned is mostly spent on buying foodgrains.

During the rainy season, which extends from April to September, the availability of food in the hills drops, and there is excess firewood in the camp but not enough buyers in the rest of the year. Almost every third hut in the camp has bundles of chopped logs placed at the entrance waiting to be sold.

Larger households are able to send some of their family members to markets in the neighboring villages, where the scope of selling commodities at a higher price is brighter. But there have been times when the markets remain shut for days on end after airstrikes or shelling in neighboring areas.  This has eaten into the income and reduced food consumption for every household.

Oo Tin Nyunt, who relocated from Sittwe last year, at her hut in Old Kran Khun Camp IDP camp in Ponnagyun Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Photo by Rajeev Bhattacharyya.

During my stay at the Old Kran Khun IDP camp, I came across three households for whom two square meals per day or being able to add vegetables to rice was a luxury.

Oo Tin Nyunt (75) is a widow without children, who was displaced from Kran Daw village in Sittwe township when it was bulldozed and then torched by the military in August 2025. She reached the IDP camp with the assistance of her neighbors who were also headed to the same camp. Except for 80,000 kyats, Oo Tin Nyunt had nothing else that could have helped sustain her in the camp. She survived on donations from two NGOs and the ULA till the end of last year.

She is currently dependent on assistance from other households in the camp. She is too frail to gather food from the hills. Neither can she work as a daily wager.

When I asked her about her plans, Oo Tin Nyunt stared for a few seconds and then, with a smile, said: “It’s one day at a time for me. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

The uncertainty looming over the IDP camps is also due to the reduced supply of foodgrains by NGOs and the ULA.

“There are more than 50 NGOs that offered assistance to the IDP camps in the liberated zone. But support has never matched the requirements. Funding from global organizations has decreased drastically over the past year owing to many factors, including the crackdown on the networks that remitted funds,” said Hla Nwe, an official with the Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office (HDCO) under the ULA.

Wong Myint, who heads an NGO, confirmed that funding........

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