Published on July 19, 2021
After ten years of long-suffering in IDP camps following the NLD-led government initiative with the collaboration of different civil society groups and international NGOs, the hope of IDPs in Kachin state to go back to their home has been revitalized. However, the hope was fragmented, and they came into uncertainty again to return to their homes following the recent military coup in Myanmar. A Myitkyina township based IDP, Seng Ing (not real name) who was originally from Waing Maw township expressed that “As my home compound is quite big so that I plan to make a vegetable farm, and in front of my house, I will open a small shop for my daily income, and my children can play freely again as we arrived in our home. But now everything about my dream to go back home and the plan was destroyed because of the military coup since February”
Amid ongoing political turmoil in the country following the oppression and brutalities by the military after the coup, the last 9 June 2021 was marked as the 10th Anniversary of the war in Kachin state. Many IDPs and rights groups expressed their concerns for the resettlement and return of IDPs because of the prolonged suffering of IDPs in squalid camps with limited access to basic services and daily needs. A young man from Je Yang IDP camp expressed his desire to go back home on the day of the anniversary. “It’s already been 10 years and now it turned to 11 years that I have been living in IDP camp. But I am not happy here anymore. I always want to go back to my home. As I am a youth, my No.1 priority is to go back home, and I always imagine that my home will be existed the same like before” (Documentary Video, 2021).
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