Thousands displaced in Myanmar rebel clashes

Over 3,000 people have fled their homes in northern Myanmar following clashes between two ethnic rebel groups, the United Nations said Tuesday, raising fears the government’s fragile peace efforts could be fracturing.

Heavy fighting in the northern state of Shan broke out last week between the Restoration Council for Shan State and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.

It is a rare instance of the country’s ethnic armed groups turning on each other and comes during a complicated transition from an army-backed government to Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party.

“We are receiving reports that more than 3,000 people have been displaced in the past week,” said Mark Cutts, country head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

He said most of them were being housed in monasteries in the town of Kyaukme and receiving help from local groups and the Myanmar Red Cross.

Kyaukme’s Lower House MP Sai Tun Aung told Parliament in an emergency debate on the issue that locals have reported teachers and students fleeing on foot to escape arrests, killings and arson attacks being carried out by “an armed group moving around the region”.

He did not specify which rebel group was responsible. The region is home to the Palaung ethnic group, whose interests the TNLA says it represents. The RCSS has previously had a small presence in the area and is based further south.

The government has tried in recent years to end decades-long civil wars between the military and numerous ethnic armed groups battling for greater autonomy.