Mahouts and their elephants help sick, young and elderly villagers displaced by conflict cross a chest-deep river in Myanmar’s remote Kachin state, where thousands of people recently completed a trek through dense jungle to safety. More than 4,000 people have been displaced in the country’s northern-most state of Kachin near the border with China in the last three weeks, according to the UN’s office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA). A 17-year ceasefire between the government and Kachin Independence Army was broken in 2011, when the army entered rebel territory and attacked one of their outposts. Since then, sporadic fierce combat has uprooted villagers and left hundreds of civilians dead.