‘One Day at a Time’: Inside an IDP Camp in Myanmar, Survival Is a Daily Challenge

Firewood put up for sale by a household in the Old Kran Khun Camp IDP camp in Ponnagyun Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Some of those living in the Old Kran Khun camp were once well off. Now they forage in the fields and forests around the IDP camp for food and firewood.

Sam Sam burst into tears when asked to narrate the circumstances that compelled her to become an internally displaced person (IDP). She pointed to clothes and utensils in her single-room thatched hut, the only things she could carry while fleeing her village. Then, she pulled out a tattered photograph from a bag.

“This was our home,” she said, pointing to the sprawling house in the photograph. “I never imagined that we would end up at a refugee camp someday.”

https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/one-day-at-a-time-inside-an-idp-camp-in-myanmar-survival-is-a-daily-challenge/