Thousands flee into China as Myanmar clashes intensify
Print Edition
THOUSANDS of people have fled into China from fighting in northern Myanmar, officials in Beijing said yesterday, with the death toll in clashes between the military and ethnic rebels over the past few days rising to nine.
The violence is a fresh blow to Aung San Suu Kyi’s hopes of forging a nationwide peace agreement after decades of insurgencies in Myanmar’s borderlands.
Heavy fighting near the Chinese border in northern Shan state between the army and four armed ethnic groups, including the powerful Kachin Independence Army, has sent locals pouring across the border.
China’s military is said to have been placed on high alert after one of its nationals was injured by a stray shell.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said about 3,000 Myanmar border citizens had cross the border.
“Out of humanitarian considerations, the Chinese local governments offered them proper settlement and brought the injured to hospital for treatment,” he told reporters.
Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang urged all parties to exercise restraint to immediately end armed conflicts near the border. Hong made the call at an inaugural ceremony of two Chinese non-governmental organizations in Yangon — the Myanmar Chinese Communication and Cooperation Central Association and the Chinese Enterprises Chamber in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi’s office said yesterday that 10 people had been killed near the border town of Muse, a hotbed of smuggling, over three days. That included three police, two pro-government militia members and five civilians including two women. A soldier reported dead on Sunday was not accounted for. A total of 33 people have been injured in the fighting, the office said in a statement.
“People dare not go outside,” town resident Aye Aye told reporters. “We are frightened. We are thinking of going to China if the situation gets worse.”
Suu Kyi has made dealing with the simmering unrest in Myanmar’s border regions a priority. But fighting in northern Kachin and Shan states, and in the south in Karen, have cast a pall over her efforts and any cease-fire is expected to take years. More than 30,000 people have been displaced and at least 70 killed under a military lockdown in the north of western Rakhine state, an area home to the Muslim Rohingya minority.
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