A soldier lies in pain after an operation that removed landmine shrapnel from his stomach at the Kachin Independence Army’s military hospital in Laiza, Myanmar.
A doctor holds one of the many pieces of shrapnel pulled from the legs of a soldier who stepped on a landmine.
Military caps of all styles are kept outside the mess hall during lunch at the KIA officer training school.
Women cadets socialize and receive instruction from their commanding officer before breaking for lunch at the KIA officer training camp near Laiza, Myanmar.
Ethnic Kachin children play amid new construction at Je Yang IDP camp where over 6,000 displaced people live, near Laiza, Myanmar.
After eating a rushed 15-minute lunch, soldiers quickly wash their dishes and silverware before returning to classes at the KIA officer training school.
Sgt. Naw Ja, 26, watches a Korean movie on his laptop during a night of heavy rains at a KIA outpost near Laiza.
Children of families that have been internally displaced from other parts of Kachin state gather to play games in an open warehouse next to the school in Laiza.
Boys play war games in gangs at Je Yang, the largest Internally Displaced Persons camp that houses over 6,000 people. The camp is 15 minutes outside of Laiza, Myanmar.
Kachin refugees receive a stockpile of rice on their first night back in Myanmar after the Chinese authorities forced over 1,000 displaced people to leave camps in China.
A Kachin boy prays before breakfast in the open-air shared kitchens at the refugee camp in Lana Zup Ja, Myanmar.
Kachin children say grace before breakfast at the school that serves over 600 internally displaced refugees in Lana Zup Ja, Myanmar. With the arrival of over 1,000 more refugees, the meager staff of seven teachers will be stretched far beyond its capacity.
A family cleans up after breakfast in the spare room of a warehouse that is used as a school for the Kachin refugees displaced by conflict in Myanmar.
Lahpai Zau Mai, 11, looks out from the open-air kitchens at the Lana Zup Ja refugee camp where over 1,000 Kachin refugees arrived after being pushed out from China. The Kachin ethnic minority are mostly Christian with about half belonging to the Kachin Baptist Church and the other half to the Catholic church.
A Kachin man recently expelled from Chinese refugee camps relaxes in the room assigned to his family at an abandoned casino hotel in Lana Zup Ja, Myanmar. Many families brought live chickens, ducks and geese along with the few clothes and other possessions they had managed to acquire in China.
Lahpai Zau Mai, 11, plays with his brother outside the shared kitchens at the refugee camp in Lana Zup Ja, Myanmar.
A farmer lies in pain during an operation to remove landmine shrapnel from his leg at the Kachin Independence Army’s military hospital in Laiza, Myanmar.
Over 1,000 Kachin refugees arrived in Lana Zup Ja after their expulsion from China by Chinese authorities. They were put in casino hotels that were built by Chinese in 2002 and abandoned in 2007 due to growing conflict between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army.
Kachin Independence Army soldiers practice drills at the officer training school in Laiza, Myanmar on August 17, 2012.
From 1994 to 2011, a ceasefire between the Myanmar Armed Forces and groups of ethnic Kachin held an uneasy peace in northern Myanmar. In June 2011, the Myanmar Army attacked Kachin Independence Army troops near the construction of a hydroelectric power plant. Conflict spread throughout Kachin state and over 100,000 people were displaced, with many crossing the border into neighboring Yunnan Province, China. In August 2012, China began expelling the refugees back into Myanmar. These images document Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps outside of the Kachin-controlled town of Laiza as well as refugees arriving at the village of Lana Zup Ja, near Mai Ja Yang. External sources: BBC, Human Rights Watch