The author is a Kayah journalist who is receiving support from The Kite Tales to write these diaries.

The first time I met Ma Aye*, we were hiding in the jungle as battles raged between the resistance forces and Myanmar army around Demoso township in Kayah State. She was heavily pregnant and while everyone else was hiding in the forest, our group stayed together on a mountainside that we thought was safer.

I would often see her husband busily preparing food or fixing a shelter to try and keep her safe. They were very worried because she was close to her due date and there was no hospital or infirmary nearby for her to give birth.

That was sometime around June 2021. After a while my family and I continued our journey towards the border, leaving Ma Aye and her husband behind.

I assumed we would not meet again. But six months later I bumped into Ma Aye unexpectedly at a refugee camp along the Thai-Karenni border. I was glad to see her and asked about the baby, what the sex was and how the birth went.

She hesitated and then tears welled in her eyes and her face crumpled into an image of suffering. Unable to speak at all, she ran into her little hut crying.
 
Her husband was there too and he said that they had given birth to twin boys in a village near the jungle while they were still on the run from the fighting. When the children fell gravely ill there was little anyone could do to help.

Mobile health workers in the forest did what they could, but I learnt that the lack of sufficient medicine for treating them as well as the lack of safe and comfortable accommodation all contributed to the loss of their boys. 

Ma Aye and her husband desperately pleaded for help to get to the city, but because it was a time of war people were afraid to travel. The army had been arresting and killing people who were going about their daily business in the city. No one would take them.

So they were unable to take their newborn twins to the hospital for treatment.
 
When I met Ma Aye again and asked about their children, I unwittingly made her relive her trauma. She still felt like she was about to lose her mind whenever she recounted what happened.
 
Sadly the devastating loss that Ma Aye suffered is not uncommon in this conflict. Many women have been forced to give birth in the jungle while fleeing the fighting.

A friend of mine went into labour before her due date in a remote forest village while displaced and lost her child because she did not receive the necessary medical treatment. Another woman I know lost her pregnancy while on the run with her husband, a policeman who took part in the civil disobedience movement. I’ve also heard of mothers who died in childbirth.

These are tragedies not just for these families, but for the future generation. With fighting continuing to this day, mothers and children in conflict zones do not have access to regular vaccinations, nor do they have access to adequate food and water.
 
Mothers and children are losing their rights to protection and care. A beautiful future for them is a distant dream.

Artwork by JC who is receiving support from The Kite Tales to produce illustrations.