The mass relocation of more than 300,000 Shans from their homes to ill-supplied resettlement sites next to army bases has driven thousands into the jungles of Shan state.
Bearing tales of attempts to strip Shan communities of their ethnic identity and suppress their language and culture, growing numbers are trekking illegally into Thailand to find sanctuary.
"They [the Burmese military] are forcing us to move and won't let us grow anything," said Lung Pan, 50, a Shan farmer who had fled to Thailand. "If they see us in the jungle or farming at our old villages, they shoot us. They say even if they see one dog in the village, they will kill it."
Northern Thailand has seen between 1,500 and 3,000 refugees a month pour across the border, prompting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to call on Bangkok to grant temporary asylum to Shans escaping persecution.
Colonel Yod Serk, leader of the rebel Shan State Army (SSA), which is the largest ethnic group still fighting for independence from Rangoon, told the Guardian this week: "The Burmese military are killing and torturing the people because the rural villages have close links with the SSA, so they want to separate us."
Shan-language signs have been torn down to be replaced with ones in Burmese, and in Lai Kah, one of the largest towns in the relocation zone, 30 Shan temples have been torched and looted.
The current insurgency, which began three years ago, has been marked by thousands of killings as well as the relocations, according to the Thailand-based Shan Human Rights Foundation. Requisitioning of food, labour and livestock from civilians has also increased in the past year across Burma, as Rangoon struggles to supply its army, which numbers over 400,000.
A recent spate of killing has led to fears that the Burmese military, which has not halted refugees up to now, is tightening controls at the border.
