Myanmar Spring Chronicle – Scenes from May 24
(MoeMaKa), May 25, 2026
Residents Return to Tedim and Falam; Signs of Emerging Self-Governance in Ethnic Regions
In recent days, some news media outlets have published photos and videos showing residents returning home to the two northern Chin State towns of Tedim and Falam. Falam had been seized and controlled by Chin revolutionary armed groups for more than a year, but in April the military junta recaptured the town.
Tedim, on the other hand, had remained under junta control throughout, but in late April, rumors of an impending battle for the town prompted roughly half of Tedim’s population to flee toward the Indian border and to Kalay.
Now, local churches, aid groups, and businesspeople from Tedim and Falam have arranged free transportation for displaced residents sheltering in Kalay to return home. As a result, reports have emerged of hundreds of people making their way back.
Some may ask why displaced civilians did not return while revolutionary forces controlled Falam, but are returning now that the junta has retaken it. One reason is the danger posed by military airstrikes while revolutionary forces held the town. Another is the belief that, after the junta’s recapture, another major battle for the town is unlikely in the near term. For residents, the decision is less about supporting or opposing revolutionary forces than about calculating risks and consequences.
Many displaced people from these two towns had spent weeks or even months taking refuge in Kalay, located on the border between Chin State and Sagaing Region. Over time, the burden of paying rent and buying meat, fish, and vegetables became overwhelming. In Chin hill communities, many families normally grow vegetables and raise chickens, pigs, and goats within their own compounds, allowing them to live with minimal expenses. But once displaced, every necessity must be purchased, creating a crushing financial burden.
Because of these realities, when an opportunity arises to return home, people prioritize survival over political alignment.
In wartime, especially during battles to capture towns or territory, civilians are often forced to abandon their homes and villages for weeks, months, or even years. Many exhaust all their savings just trying to survive displacement, while some families do not even have enough money to flee. In certain towns and villages, people have had to flee repeatedly. They are often trapped in impossible choices between the threat of violence and the threat of starvation.
Another topic today concerns the distinctive developments emerging in ethnic armed group-controlled territories after Operation 1027.
One recent news story involves a new bank called The Mountain Bank (TMB), which is preparing to open in Namkham, a town controlled by the TNLA. News reports have also described how TNLA and MNDAA-controlled areas have begun collecting taxes on vehicles, issuing vehicle licenses, and providing identity and household registration documents.
TMB, or The Mountain Bank, is reportedly headquartered in Panghsang in the Wa Special Region and primarily provides money transfer services. According to reports, its main operating currency is the Chinese yuan, and its business focuses more on remittances than on savings or loans.
In Namkham—a border town captured and administered by the TNLA during Operation 1027—major Myanmar private banks such as KBZ, Ayeyarwady, CB, Myanmar Apex, and Yoma are no longer operating. In their place, branches of TMB, which is based in the Wa Special Region and operates mainly in yuan, are now being established.
This suggests that residents may no longer be financially connected in the usual way to central cities such as Naypyidaw, Yangon, or Mandalay. Instead, the emerging system appears designed to facilitate money transfers and withdrawals between ethnic armed group territories, such as the Wa region and Ta’ang areas, as well as among TNLA-controlled towns.
Similarly, MNDAA- and TNLA-controlled territories have begun issuing vehicle registrations and personal identification documents for local residents. Both Kokang-controlled areas under the MNDAA and TNLA-administered regions are now providing such IDs and vehicle registrations.
Before 2021, aside from the Wa Special Region, these kinds of administrative and public service functions were largely absent in other ethnic regions.
Since Operation 1027, however, such new service and governance structures have increasingly appeared in Ta’ang territory, the Kokang region, and Rakhine State. On one hand, these developments can be viewed as ethnic regions and states building public services and administrative systems suited to local needs, thereby reducing dependence on centralized control. On the other hand, questions remain about whether such systems can endure long term while territorial control itself remains unstable.