Thousands flee fighting in Myanmar's north

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar (AA) - More than 4,000 people have been displaced by ongoing fighting between government troops and an ethnic rebel group near Myanmar’s northeastern border with China, officials and activists said Friday.

At least 36 people, including five civilians, were killed in surprise attacks by a Kokang rebel group -- Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) -- in the small town of Laukkai in Shan State on Monday.

According to a government announcement released Friday, more than 2,000 people in the area -- mostly farm workers originally from other parts of the country -- have been sheltered in 11 temporary camps in three townships.

Local civil society organizations are also helping displaced workers return to their hometowns, said an activist with Peace and Open Society, a group led by former student leaders.

“Hundreds of workers arrive in the town every day,” said Than Than Aye told Anadolu Agency by phone from Lashio town.

In addition to the internally displaced, around 2,000 residents of Laukkai -- mostly members of the ethnic Kokang community -- have fled across the border to China after the violence, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

The MNDAA, led by the ethnically Chinese Peng Jiasheng, was formed out of the China-backed Communist Party of Burma, which disbanded in the late 1980s.

Scores of people died in 2015 when MNDAA troops entered the Kokang self-administered region.

On Tuesday, a day after the MNDAA raided a hotel and police and military outposts in Laukkai, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi called on all rebel groups to abandon armed attacks.

The attack came days after representatives from the government and the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) -- an umbrella association of seven rebel groups that did not sign a 2015 ceasefire deal -- reached an agreement in principle over nine points after a series of meetings last week.

Khu Oo Reh, leader of the UNFC delegation, said Friday that if Myanmar’s powerful military agreed to their nine-point proposal, the rebel alliance would sign the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) -- inked by the previous quasi-civilian government and eight out of the 15 groups invited.

“Such armed conflicts cannot bring any good benefits and are devoid of any meaning for all the ethnic nationalities and Union citizens residing in the Union,” Suu Kyi said Tuesday.

In November last year, the MNDAA along with the powerful Kachin Independent Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Arakan Army -- together known as the Northern Alliance -- had jointly attacked police stations, military outposts and a trade zone in Shan’s Muse Township.

Several rebel groups, including those in the Northern Alliance, had refused to sign the NCA due to its lack of all-inclusiveness.