Hiding in the Jungle - Bwe Doh Soe

I was very young, and I wasn’t remember anything, because all I remember was my, my mom was grabbing my hands, and is told me to run. And he was grabbing me so hard, and he grabbed some of the belonging, and, we ran away. And then we were—because I was a—I was very young, so I didn’t know, but now when I realise it now day, it’s such a, it’s very emotional. Like, it’s such a very—I can’t, I can’t—like, I can’t imagine it. You know, I can’t image it, at that time. But what is like being in a mother that times, you know, how the people will go through it in this kind of situation. But it’s because I was very, you know, I have a best, I have a friend also there. And then, all I remember was my mom was grabbing my hands, and we, and told me to run. And later of the day, a few days, people—we were hiding in the jungle, so, and I was, and later on, we heard that some of the people was got shot. Which is including one of a friends, you know. And it is just, it’s, everybody was, like, crying, you know, everybody was crying, and we were starving, and then I remember it was like, the children also were, um, cry, and they were told not to cry because they were, were afraid that the soldiers would hear that, and they will, uh, capture us. And then my mother—and then, so my mother decided to go directly to the refugee camp, and then—but my mother relatives not giving up. They were like: No, we will—even things that happen— we’ll stay going back. We’ll stay. It’s like, when, it’s, like once they left their homeland, and then they were waiting for a week or two weeks or three weeks and they were going back to get their belongings again, you know. Whatever left. But most of the time, the soldier destroyed, pretty much everything. But there was something left. The animal all those kind of stuff, you know. But my mother decided to come to the refugee camp. So, and then some of the soldiers who take a best to, um—My mother asked the soldiers, the Karen soldier, to take us best to—to the refugee—to the border, and then we crossed the river, and we had to work, walk, like, three days or four day to get to a refugee camp. Yeah.

Oral History 13.11.23BDS with Bwe Doh Soe
Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21