Late one night last month Iang Za Kim heard explosions in a neighbouring village, then fighter jets flying overhead. She ran out of her home to see smoke rising from a distance.
"We were terrified. We thought the junta's planes would bomb us too. So we grabbed what we could – some food and clothes and ran into the jungles surrounding our village."
Iang's face quivers as she recounts the story of what happened on 26 November in K-Haimual, her village in Myanmar's western Chin State, and then she breaks down.
She's among thousands of civilians who've fled their homes in recent weeks after the Burmese military launched a fierce campaign of air strikes, and a ground offensive in rebel-held areas across the country, to recapture territory ahead of elections starting on 28 December.
Four other women sitting around her on straw mats also start crying. The trauma of what they've gone through to make it to safety is clearly visible.










