03/03/2026
-I was a student before the war broke out and had planned to study politics and society, says Kyoe Reh, 20 years old.
Like so many other young people, he joined the resistance movement at the time of the coup in Myanmar and fought for three years before a mine took his leg. Now he lives at a center somewhere along the border on the Thai side, while waiting for a prosthetic leg and undergoing rehabilitation.
The military coup in February 2021 put an end to the mild democratization the country had seen for a few years, deposed the elected government and has claimed many victims since. According to the World's Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, Myanmar is now the country in the world with the most deaths from landmines, over 2,000 people in 2024 alone, most of them civilians.
I have come to the center with a group of Burmese in the diaspora who are collecting support in their home countries for the victims of the war, inside and outside the country.
Just a couple of miles away from the center, over the mountains, in the war-torn Myanmar, Kyoe Reh, and many of the other young men's families remain. It is a war that does not make many headlines anymore. the trauma among the young men at the center is clear and severe. The needs are greater than the resources.
-We need prosthetic legs, says Ei Meh, 28, one of the camp's four volunteers.
But the power of the groups opposition to the military junta is strong and hope remains.
Tae Soe, 22, was injured over three years ago and has had three surgeries, on his arm, for his finger sand on his face. But the mine that changed his life on May 8, 2022, did not take away his singing voice.
