Sam Shan was 14 when he fled Burma's military dictatorship, leaving his family behind. Yet today, he's in a place that feels more like home to him than the village he was forced to give up: the ...

The Shan Hills, rising from the Burmese lowlands toward China, are crammed with ethnic groups that have long chafed against any centralized authority: among them, the Pa’O, the Wa, the Ta’ang ...

longyi: lower garment of Burmese dress for both sexes; it is wrapped around like a skirt or sarong. mahadevi: wife of a sawbwa, a Shan chief. Mara: in Buddhism, the spirit of evil; the tempter.

“In the name of counterinsurgency, the Burmese army and its proxies are executing, torturing, raping and forcibly displacing Shan civilians,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch.