Communist rebels battling Myanmar's ruling military junta have taken in nearly 140 elephants, as fighting rages in the jungles and scrubland around the country's second-largest city Mandalay.
The tuskers have been coming into the rebel camp in twos and threes since July, many led by handlers fleeing the junta-controlled timber camps that employ them.
Others have been taken as spoils in territory captured by the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) as it battles the military and its 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government.
The general secretary of the CPB's People's Liberation Army (PLA), Ni Ni Kway, said they wanted to protect the animals.
"We were worried that if no one took control of them, these elephants would fall into the hands of traffickers," she told the AFP news agency.
"If these elephants reach the black market or are taken by traffickers, they will have a huge problem."
State timber enterprises in Myanmar are thought to employ around 3,000 elephants, the majority dragging freshly cut trees through the dense jungle to transport hubs and mills.
Fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild, and fewer than 2,000 of them are found in Myanmar, according to 2018 figures from environmental group WWF.
Myanmar is home to the second-largest population of Asian elephants in the world behind India.
Elephants used in battle
At one PLA camp last week, around a dozen of the animals knelt in a line alongside their handlers before heading off on a march.
A CPB soldier clad in camouflage and carrying a rifle stepped up to the wooden platform on one elephant's back and the small herd rumbled off into the forest.
Old Burmese chronicles tell of kings fighting their rivals on the back of elephants and riding them into battle.
But Ni Ni Kyaw said it was not certain how the communists would use the animals in their battle against the military.
"We are worried that we are going to lose this treasure of our country, therefore, we will take care of them as best as we can," she said.
The PLA was providing rice and cooking oil to the elephant handlers — known as mahouts — and their family members, she added.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government and seized power in 2021.
The resulting military crackdown reignited clashes with long-established ethnic minority armed groups, as well as newly formed pro-democracy "People's Defence Forces".
The military has lost swaths of territory in the northern Shan state and around Mandalay to an alliance of the armed ethnic minority groups and PDFs battling to overturn the coup.
"Even our human beings have many difficulties due to the current fighting and there are a lot of displaced people," said Ni Ni Kyaw.
"Elephants have big bodies and they eat a lot, so they need a lot of space in the jungle."
She said once the war ended and a new government was installed, the army would give the animals to the forest department.
Rare twin elephants born
Last week, twin elephants were born on a timber camp in Myanmar.
Officials at the Wingabaw elephant camp in the Bago region, operated by the state-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise, said Pearl Sint and her brother Kway Pearl were now thriving after a challenging few days.
The camp's assistant manager, Myo Min Aung, said the pint-sized twins were around four inches shorter than the average calf.
This meant they were not tall enough to reach their mother's teat and feed.
"We helped them by putting small wooden blocks under their front legs and bringing their heads up to their mother's breast," he said.
On the third day, they were able to feed themselves and quickly showed their personalities.
While most elephants are used in Myanmar's timber industry, the animals at the Wingabow camp carry humans as tourist attractions.
AFP/ABC
