'My 17-year-old was brutally killed, but I'm glad she fought for freedom'

Landmine canisters and spent bullets litter the ground. Yellow wildflowers have sprouted through piles of corrugated tin sheets strewn about where soldiers’ barracks used to be. Hastily dug trenches line one part of the camp.

Warning: You may find some of the details in this piece disturbing

Under the overcast sky, a flag flutters in the wind - red, white and blue horizontal stripes with the picture of a hornbill at the centre – the flag of the Chin National Army (CNA), an ethnic armed group fighting against Myanmar’s military junta in the western Chin state.

Seven months ago the CNA, along with local armed civilian groups, pushed Myanmar’s army out of this camp at Rihkhawdar – a border trade town with India – and from other areas in the Chin state. It’s an unprecedented advance for Chin insurgents fighting against Myanmar’s military dictatorship which crushed the country’s fragile democracy in a coup in 2021.