Among the dense jungles of Myanmar, the Free Burma Rangers, a little known Christian organisation navigates a murky world where humanitarian assistance and armed resistance meet, as they provide medical help to ethnic communities in their fight against the Myanmar government.
For almost three decades, they have braved bullets, mortars and aerial attacks working as combat medics at the front line of the world’s longest running civil conflict.
Founded by Texan former United States special forces officer David Eubank, the group has 150 indigenous teams operating in Myanmar, backed by the training of former US military personnel.
From their base in Southeast Asia, they provide combat medical support and training and deliver humanitarian aid to ethnic Burmese rebel forces including Karen, Karenni Arakan, Shan and Rohingya peoples.
They have expanded their mission to operate on the front lines of Sudan and Ukraine, and are active in Syria and Iraq.
Their approach is unconventional for a humanitarian organisation. Its members are often armed and are provided with military-style training, to ensure their safety and efficiency in the field.
Among their current leadership are former US military service people, mainly Christian volunteers, including a former marine, navy and army personnel, and a navy seal.
The indigenous teams they train in Myanmar are designed to operate as self sufficient units that require little support from the Rangers once established.
Unlike many other NGO groups operating in war zones, the Rangers have picked a side. In Myanmar, which they furiously call Burma, the group is pro-democracy and backs the cause of ethnic populations fighting the government.
The Rangers describe themselves as operating in the gap between the front line and the rear. They provide war zone medical assistance, humanitarian aid and report human rights violations, while providing an early warning system of attacks by government forces.
This goes beyond normal humanitarian assistance and is providing some of the means that directly support the insurgency.
This direct involvement can be viewed through the lens of the atrocities they report and document, including air strikes on hospitals and refugee camps, villages being massacred, their inhabitants raped, beaten to death, stabbed and burned alive by government forces.
I met David Eubank at his training facility during his annual Free Burma Ranger meeting last month. The facility has a feel somewhere between a church camp and a military base, as he hosts guests and volunteers alongside Burmese ranger units.
It is a place of jarring contrasts.
Chalets dotted around the property see wounded Burmese fighters recuperate in safety, while volunteer doctors are on-hand to deliver healthcare to Burmese visitors who are onsite for the meeting.
Meanwhile, groups of American children ride by on their bikes, clearly enjoying their camping holiday, as their parents attend the annual get together.
Small Burmese camouflaged military tents sit alongside the larger tents of mainly American families.
David is a compelling and charismatic leader. He is devoutly religious but with a pragmatic side.
He seems well-versed in talking to the media and his key points roll off with ease.
He is unashamedly evangelical, and during the annual meeting baptises Burmese converts in a nearby lake.
Despite the strong Christian overtones, he maintains all religions, ethnicities or religious understandings are welcome in the Rangers.
Explaining the more controversial aspects of the role of the Rangers in war zones, he says the Rangers are not a military organisation, but "are not pacifists either".
"Most of the Rangers don’t fight but some have. Some of us more than others. Kind of depends where you are at."
He explains if Rangers choose to be armed then they provide their own weapons.
"If you have got a weapon that you acquired yourself and the people you are with can’t run and the enemy is attacking you ... you can defend yourself.
"I mean in that story I just told, I shot those Isis guys," he says, referring to an earlier conversation about a firefight in which he had been ambushed by Isis in Iraq.
David talks about one of the key principles Rangers follow as part of his explanation about the rules of engagement in the field.
"The rules are you can’t run if the people can’t run. So, it means if they can’t run away, you have got to stay.
"Whether you have a weapon or not is your personal decision, but even if you have no guns and the enemy has guns, you have to stay, or carry the person out."
Asked about whether the Rangers cross the line into formal military training, David pauses in his response, saying he wants to choose his words carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
He goes on to explain the training they provide is necessary to respond to humanitarian needs in war zones.
This includes moving under fire, navigation, rock climbing and repelling, "and about 30 to 40 subjects that all revolve around living in the jungle and helping people in need".
"We do some basic self-defence — [if] you are moving along and the Burma Army shoots at you, and they are not far away, you can’t just run. What are the steps you can take to get the people you want to protect out of the fight".
"They get some, I’d call it security training, but it is only a few days of it. It doesn’t make them into soldiers, but it makes them able to function in hostile environments.
"You are not going to leave [the gun] there — it is precious, plus the enemy will get it.
"But it is not really military training, not how to kill the enemy."
It is dangerous work and since the Rangers were formed, 68 members have been killed in Myanmar, and more than 200 wounded in the field.
"Just today one of my lady medics was killed. She was bombed yesterday, survived and this, this is her," he says, producing a photo from his phone of the charred remains of the Burmese woman who had died earlier that day.
She had been burned over most of her body, after being hit by an incendiary bomb.
"I have already cried a couple of times today for her."
Later he tells of another casualty.
"Just two weeks ago I lost another one of my [indigenous] guys. Killed right behind me, I was closer to the front than he was.
"He was back at the casualty collection point, I was up at the front bringing wounded back. He got killed. Young kid, so friendly."
He says with the support of Russia and China, attacks by Myanmar government forces have stepped up with an intensity not previously seen.
"We have been involved 31 years, and we have never seen this sustained level of fighting."
David details a recent aerial operation in which resistance forces and towns are being relentlessly attacked from the air by transport planes dropping bombs for up to 20 hours a day, interrupted only by mortar attacks and sorties by Russian and Chinese manufactured jet fighters.
The ferocity of the onslaught by Myanmar government forces has been triggered by the success of insurgents who now control two thirds of the country.
"No major cities, but they control almost all of the outside spaces."
Added to the complexity are geopolitical interests.
"China and Russia do not want a democracy to come there, not at all, so they are pouring in ammunition, weapons, aircraft. The culmination of the desperation of the Burma dictatorship plus international support enables them to launch these complex, highly sustained attacks."
A change on the battlefield that concerns David is the use of drones, which are now used to call in artillery fire on rebel positions. He is gung ho about his military exploits until he switches to this subject. For the first time he conveys real fear.
"Drones came on two years ago in a big way. Four months ago, for the first time [there were] suicide drones flying. That’s Russia, China. So it’s very dangerous now.
"We heard this [imitates drone noise], we didn't know if it saw us ... The next thing you know MLRS, multiple launch rocket system, so much close to us. They know we are here.
"You cannot hide any more, so we are running and this drone is evidently following us. That we didn’t get killed is amazing. It is all over us, we are diving on the ground. That we didn’t face before — they couldn’t follow us like that."
Asked how long Myanmar government forces can hold out, David is less than enthusiastic about the speed with which the war can be ended.
"If Russia and China keep sustaining them ... it could be, at this rate, three to five years, if no-one helps from the outside."
When it comes to the help the insurgents need, David says "just something to shoot the planes down with and stop the drones. Even if you can just start with drone jammers that would be huge".
He also asked for political recognition of ethnic and pro-democracy groups.
David’s passion for the people he helps has not got in the way of family, who are regularly in the field with him, whether in Myanmar, the Middle East or the Ukraine.
He formed the Free Burma Rangers after travelling to Myanmar with his wife Karen in the late 1990s at the request of insurgent commanders, to see what help he could give. This was just after coming out of the army and then seminary school.
The request came via his parents, who were missionaries in Southeast Asia, where David had spent a lot of time growing up, and where the rebels had heard of his reputation from his time in the US military.
"We went into the jungle and wherever there was a fight we would help people who were running away. Then it started to grow, and people started to join us."
