Late one night last month Iang Za Kim heard explosions in a neighbouring village, then fighter jets flying overhead. She ran out of her home to see smoke rising from a distance.

“We were terrified. We thought the junta’s planes would bomb us too. So we grabbed what we could – some food and clothes and ran into the jungles surrounding our village.”

Iang’s face quivers as she recounts the story of what happened on 26 November in K-Haimual, her village in Myanmar’s western Chin State, and then she breaks down.

She’s among thousands of civilians who’ve fled their homes in recent weeks after the Burmese military launched a fierce campaign of air strikes, and a ground offensive in rebel-held areas across the country, to recapture territory ahead of elections starting on 28 December.

Four other women sitting around her on straw mats also start crying. The trauma of what they’ve gone through to make it to safety is clearly visible.

While the air strikes were the immediate cause for Iang to flee, she also doesn’t want to be forced to participate in the election.

“If we are caught and refuse to vote, they will put us in jail and torture us. We’ve run away so that we don’t have to vote,” she says.

Some from Chin state have described the junta’s latest offensive as the fiercest it has launched in more than three years.

Many of the displaced have sought refuge in other parts of the state. Iang is among a group that crossed the border into India’s Mizoram state. Currently sheltered in a rundown badminton court in Vaphai village, the group’s few belongings they were able to carry are packed in plastic sacks.

Indian villagers have given them food and basic supplies.

Ral Uk Thang has had to flee his home at the age of 80, living in makeshift shelters in jungles for days, before finally making it to safety.

“We’re afraid of our own government. They are extremely cruel. Their military has come into our and other villages in the past, they’ve arrested people, tortured them, and burned down homes,” he says.

It isn’t easy to speak to Burmese civilians freely. Myanmar’s military government does not allow free access in the country for foreign journalists. It took over the country in a coup in February 2021, shortly after the last election, and has since been widely condemned for running a repressive regime that has indiscriminately targeted civilians as it looks to crush the armed uprising against it across Myanmar.

During its latest offensive, the junta last week targeted a hospital in Rakhine State, just south of Chin State. Rebel groups in Rakhine say at least 30 people were killed and more than 70 injured.

The Chin Human Rights Organisation says that since mid-September at least three schools and six churches in Chin State have been targeted by junta airstrikes, killing 12 people including six children.

The BBC has independently verified the bombing of a school in Vanha village on 13 October. Two students –Johan Phun Lian Cung, who was seven, and Zing Cer Mawi, 12 – were killed as they were attending lessons. The bombs ripped through their classrooms injuring more than a dozen other students.

Myanmar’s military government did not respond to the BBC’s questions about the allegations.

This is the second time Bawi Nei Lian and his young family – a wife and two young children – have been displaced. Back in 2021, soon after the coup, their home in Falam town was burnt down in an air strike. They rebuilt their lives in K-Haimual village. Now they’re homeless again.

“I can’t find the words to explain how painful and hard it is and what a difficult decision it was to make to leave. But we had to do it to stay alive,” he says.

“I want the world to know that what the military is claiming – that this election is free and fair – this is absolutely false. When the main political party is not being allowed to contest the election, how can there be genuine democracy?”

The National League for Democracy party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, which won landslides in the two elections prior to the coup, will not be contesting as most of its senior leaders including Suu Kyi are in jail.

“We don’t want the election. Because the military does not know how to govern our country. They only work for the benefit of their high-ranking leaders. When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party was in power, we experienced a bit of democracy. But now all we do is cry and shed tears,” says Ral Uk Thang.

Iang Za Kim believes the election will be rigged. “If we voted for a party not allied with the military, I believe they will steal our votes and claim we voted for them.”

The election will take place in phases, with a result expected around the end of January. Rebel groups have called it a sham.

At the base of the Chin National Front in Myanmar, the most prominent rebel group operating in the state, the group’s Vice Chairman Sui Khar says: “This election is only being held to prolong military dictatorship. It’s not about the people’s choice. And in Chin State, they hardly control much area, so how can they hold an election?”

He points out the areas where the most intense fighting is ongoing on a map and tells us nearly 50 rebel fighters have been injured in just the past month. There have been deaths too, but so far the groups have not released a number.

“There are columns of hundreds of soldiers trying to advance into the northern part of Chin state from four directions,” Sui Khar says. “The soldiers are being supported by air strikes, artillery fire and by drone units.”

Access to the base is extremely rare. Set amid thickly forested mountains, it is the heart of the resistance against the junta in Chin state.

Sui Khar takes us to the hospital at the base. We see a group of injured fighters who were brought in overnight and had to undergo hours of surgery. Some of them have had to undergo amputations.

Many of them were just schoolboys when the coup occurred in 2021. Just about adults now, they’ve let go of their dreams to fight on the frontline against the junta.

Abel, 18, is in too much pain to speak. He was with a group of fighters trying to take back territory the junta captured a week ago. They won the battle, but Abel lost his right leg and has serious injuries to his hands as well.

In a bed next to him is Si Si Maung, 19, who’s also had a leg amputated.

“As the enemy was retreating we ran forward and I stepped on a landmine. We were injured in the explosion. Then we were attacked from the air. The airstrikes make things very difficult for us,” he says. “I’ve lost a leg, but even if I’ve to give up my life I’m happy to make the sacrifice so that future generations have a better life.”

The impact of the ferocity of the latest offensive is visible in room after room at the hospital.

Yet, it’s the support and grit of tens of thousands of youngsters like Si Si Maung, who picked up arms to fight against the junta, that have helped the rebels make rapid advances against a much more powerful rival in the past four-and-a-half years.

Some like 80-year-old Ral Uk Thang hope that after the election, the junta will retreat, and he will be able to go back home.

“But I don’t think I will live to see democracy restored in Myanmar,” he says. “I hope my children and grandchildren can witness it some day.”

Additional reporting by Aamir Peerzada, Sanjay Ganguly and Aakriti Thapar