The junta authorities have ordered that all northern Shan State internally displaced people (IDPs) will have to close by the end of the year.

The displacement of over one million people since the coup is often overlooked amongst the other horrors and tragedies unfolding in the country, according to advocacy organisation the Transnational Institute (TNI).

According to UNOCHA, to date, nearly 1 million people have been displaced by the Myanmar conflict since the military coup in February 2021.

Amongst all the tragedies of displacement, the move to shut down the northern Shan IDP camps is a terrible new human drama now unfolding that demands attention, according to TNI.

In northern Shan State, about 14,000 people currently living in IDP camps who were previously displaced by armed conflict even before 2021 – most of them as much as 10 years ago – are now being threatened in a new way.

Despite the intensification of armed conflict since the coup, the northern Shan IDPs are being told that the IDP camps will be closed down by the end of this year (and some even earlier) and that they must depart. They have been given no viable plan, no discussion: just an order to prepare to leave.

Armed conflict is what originally forced them to flee their customary lands and to settle in IDP camps so many years ago. They remain there because the conflict situation never improved substantially enough for them to leave, and indeed has deteriorated even more since the coup.

TNI wants to know what the logic is behind forcing any IDP camp to close down today? Where are the people who live in these camps supposed to go today? For sure, some people – military authorities, aid professionals etc. – will have something to say. But what about those most affected: what do the northern Shan IDPs themselves have to say?

To try to find out how the northern Shan IDPs feel about this TNI spoke to them saying that we should closely listen to what the they say, rather than imagining that others know what is best today.

The organisation said that IDPs in northern Shan State point to the ongoing conflict situation and argue that conditions needed for their safe and dignified return do not exist.

They point to meetings that are taking place in preparation for forcible camp closures – meetings from which they are being excluded -- and argue that after ten years of being away from their customary lands and villages, much has changed and much has been destroyed by the military occupation.

This means that careful planning and preparation are necessary to be able to “rebuild a safe and secure” physical and social environment for them and their children. They argue that any discussion of closing the camps must include them sincerely and meaningfully, because every decision made will affect them directly.

TNI says that surely, the Shan IDPs practical experience and no-nonsense knowledge of their own situation in the camps and the situation on the ground is what should guide the actions of anyone who would want to help them in this hour of need.

Listening to them, the warnings are clear: closing the camps in the manner that is being threatened is a dangerous folly and will have tragic consequences.

TNI says that what the Shan IDPs need is good preparation and planning, safe and secure places to go (whether original villages or elsewhere), and support for basic food and medicines.

These recommendations are not only reasonable and humane, but they are also actually the right thing to do according to the most basic international human rights and humanitarian principles, according to TN