As thousands more people have fled their homes due to renewed fighting in Kayah (Karenni) State this month, there is a shortage of drinking water and food at displacement camps and an urgent need for aid, according to Karenni aid workers.

Thousands of locals were displaced by fierce clashes between the Myanmar military and anti- regime forces in Loikaw, Pekhon, Demoso and Moebye townships in early November.

“The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) at displacement camps in Loikaw, Demoso Moebye and Pekhon townships have increased by around 2,000,” said an aid worker.

There are more than 10,000 IDPs at displacement camps in Demoso and Pekhon townships alone, and food and drinking water are urgently needed for IDPs, according to officials from the Karenni Civil Society Network.

“The displacement camps in Demoso and Pekhon townships are the most in need as there are more than 5,000 displaced people. Roughly 150 displacement camps are in need of humanitarian assistance,” said an official from the Karenni Civil Society Network.

Aid workers deliver drinking water and food items to displacement camps. (Photo: Karenni Civil Society Network)

Along with the increase in the region’s displaced population, there is a shortage of food and drinking water as well as medicine, according to medical teams providing healthcare services to IDP camps.

“IDPs are in need of food items and drinking water and there has been a shortage of medicines in displacement camps. We are carefully delivering drinking water to IDP camps because we have to evade the arrest of the military,” said a member of the medical team.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as of November, there were an estimated 79,700 IDPs in Kayah State who were uprooted since the coup in February 2021, many of them displaced by fighting between regime troops and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF).