Resistance fighters from the People's Defense Forces (PDF) retreat with the body of a comrade, following a clash with the Myanmar military, in Moe Bye, Kayah (Karenni) State, Myanmar.
Myanmar authorities had sent reinforcements to the region as fighting with local opposition groups intensified. Moe Bye was strategically important as it gave the military access to roads leading to areas where armed resistance was especially strong. By 16 February, almost all of the town's civilian residents had fled.
The PDF is the armed wing of a parallel government that was formed primarily by ousted democratic lawmakers in the wake of a military coup in Myanmar in 2021. It fights alongside regional and ethnic militia also opposed to Myanmar’s military dictatorship, such as the resistance groups in Karenni State. At great personal risk, the photographer spent a year with Karenni people who had joined this combined resistance movement. Various Karenni ethnic communities in the region have a history of fighting for independence that stretches back to the end of British colonial rule in 1948.
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