The World Food Programme (WFP) has cut off much-needed assistance to hundreds of villagers who were forced from their homes after fighting broke out in Kutkai Township.

''We're facing so many difficulties after running out of food," says a woman who runs a KBC internally displaced person's (IDPs) camp in the Mongsi area. Since June, WFP has stopped providing food to the 250 residents and other organisations aren't helping them at the moment.

Another IDP said: ''Because we don't have enough rice, we have to feed ourselves with bamboo shoots and other vegetables, and the children and elderly are malnourished.'' The IDPs also have to forage for mushrooms and snails to increase the nutritional value of their food.

"Just talking about it makes me want to cry. We cannot afford to buy an egg!"

Everyone expected they would continue receiving support until the end of the year.

The IDPs fled fighting between the Burma Army and the Kachin Independence Army near their homes in 2011. They lived in Kutkai Baptist Church until 2020 and then moved to the camp in 2020 when the church commemorated its 100th anniversary.

Villagers uprooted by the various conflicts between armed groups in other regions of northern Shan and Kachin states also find that their aid has stopped or that donor groups cannot reach them because of the fighting and restrictions imposed by the military regime.