“I don’t know what has happened to my village because we escaped as quickly as we could and didn’t look back. But in the past they have killed many people on these operations.”

He said that the family felt safe in the camp although his youngest grandchild has fever. Malaria is the biggest killer for the refugees, who fear that the coming monsoon next month when disease always worsens.

Poe Tha Mya, 68, said that the last time he saw a foreigner was when British paratroopers landed in his village during the war. “We loved the British and thought they would give the Karen independence,” he said. “If they had, there would be no killing here now. This year the army burnt my village and the rice store. I heard they killed three of my relatives.

“The Burmese have always hated the Karen. Even in the time of the last Burmese king we were attacked and enslaved. Now even the anti-government Burmese students who flee the regime come to Karen state and try to boss us about.”

MINORITY FIGHT

There are more than six million Karen living in Burma (making up 7 per cent of the population), and 400,000 in Thailand

The Karen are divided into two sub-groups, the Skaw (or Pgaganyaw) and the Pwo (or Plong)

The Karen National Union (KNU) has fought the Burmese regime since independence in 1948. The KNU has 4,000 men, the Burmese army 400,000

Aid agencies estimate that about 300,000 Karen have fled their homes during the past two decades

30-40 per cent of Karen are Christians; the rest are Buddhists, representing Burma’s main religion