Villagers displaced by conflict in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township have been ordered by the Burmese military to evacuate their makeshift camps and find lodgings with friends or relatives.
“Unless both sides stop fighting and allow these people to go home, [the Kachin IDPs] are facing a dire situation.”
Thousands in Kachin State’s capital Myitkyina joined a rally on Monday demanding safe passage for displaced civilians trapped amid clashes between the Burmese military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
The military has announced in Kachin State’s Tanai town that civilians who abandoned their homes to avoid clashes between government troops and the Kachin Independence Army must return, saying KIA forces had retreated from the affected villages in Tanai Township.
Burmese authorities on Friday visited a suspected shallow grave in the country’s north that residents said contained the bodies of two ethnic minority men who were detained by soldiers in January, a police officer and a community leader said.
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kachin State’s Tanai Township will face a shortage of rations by the end of this month, aid workers say.
As attention increasingly focuses on the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims amassing at already overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, thousands have also been displaced within Arakan State and more than 300 teachers in the conflict zone are “stranded” and in need of air-lifted evacuation.
“We have only rice for survival,” said Saw Swe Tun, the camp administrator.
According to activist Nilar Thein, a truck carrying 100 sacks of rice was prevented from entering a camp in Sadone Township, Kachin State.
Education Kachin Lead Story News
“The state counsellor told me that every child has a right to education,” said KBC’s Reverend Samson Hkalam.
With thousands of miners and their families in recent days having fled gold and amber mines in villages across Tanai Township to Tanai town, in northern Kachin State, the military has told leaders at the camps for the internally displaced that the temporary settlements should be moved elsewhere.
Karen Lead Story News Refugees
IDPs at E Htu Hta camp are calling for the withdrawal of Burmese military forces from the area, as well as a campaign to clear landmines.
“Insurgents have opened their own so-called IDP camps, where they use the local people as human shields,” said Min Aung Hlaing.
During a brief trip to conflict-wracked Kachin State on Tuesday, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi visited displacement camps and, in a lighter moment, posed for photos with a pair of nonagenarians who similarly smiled for the camera with Suu Kyi’s father more than a half-century ago.
Arakan Conflict Lead Story News
Some 420 men, women and children are camped in the town of Sechaung, while another 62 ethnic Khami people shelter in a monastery.
Conflict IDPs Kachin Lead Story News Suu Kyi
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged, albeit somewhat obliquely, the deteriorating security environment in Kachin State, with the office of Burma’s de facto leader donating 300 million kyats ($222,000) to those displaced by conflict.
Many of the IDPs yesterday attempted to flee across the Chinese border to seek sanctuary but were turned back by the Chinese authorities.
Conflict IDPs Kachin Lead Story Military News
A recent offensive by the Burmese military in Kachin State, seizing the Kachin Independence Army’s Gidon mountain outpost, has exacerbated the dire conditions for displaced people living in the area as northern Burma enters its coldest stretch of the year.
Relief workers say that these internally displaced persons are urgently in need of blankets and warm clothing as the cold season sets in.
Foreign aid groups had previously been denied access to shelters amid ongoing clashes between government security forces and armed mobs.
The group also reportedly called for the Tatmadaw to release two villagers who were detained during a raid on a SSA-S facility in the village of Panpwe.
Conflict Karen Lead Story News
“We are currently clearing the area of landmines, but it is a challenge as they are scattered everywhere,” said BGF officer Naing Maung Zaw.
Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement says it has delivered humanitarian relief for over 3,800 villagers displaced by recent hostilities.
Education IDPs Lead Story News
As efforts to expand education opportunities in rebel-controlled parts of Kachin State grow, many hope the peace process will bring lasting solutions.
Some 40,000 displaced Kachins have now spent five years in camps in remote, KIA-controlled mountains, where humanitarian aid deliveries have dwindled.
Lead Story News Peace Process Shan
“The IDPs are being repatriated as calm gradually returns to the area,” a Shan MP tells DVB.
Ethnic issues Kachin Lead Story News Politics
More than 1,000 villagers, who fled their homes to avoid being caught in the crossfire of armed conflict are running out of food in their temporary shelters.
Aid Kachin Lead Story News Refugees
After plans to visit IDPs in Sittwe were scuttled due to a cyclone warning, UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie Pitt flies to Myitkyina.
Aid Kachin Lead Story News Refugees
Hundreds of refugees in northern Kachin State are not receiving humanitarian aid, according to the Kachin Baptist Council (KBC).
Thousands of refugees at camps in northern Kachin State are facing food shortages since the state government blocked aid deliveries at the end of October.
