Refugees from Myanmar's Bhamo city cook
their meals at a rescue camp in the Chinese southwestern border city of
Ruili, Yunnan province February 9, 2012. REUTERS/Wong Campion
BANGKOK (AlertNet) – A year after fighting broke out in Myanmar between the army and ethnic Kachin rebels, tens of thousands of people remain displaced living in squalid conditions with little aid, local organisations said on Friday.
Around 65,000 Kachins, mainly women and children, have fled their
homes in the country's north and remain trapped in the jungles along
the border with China, according to the Kachin Women's Association –
Thailand (KWAT), which has been documenting the situation since fighting
started.
KWAT believe an additional 10,000 have crossed over to China.
Since December, the United Nations has on three occasions sent
teams to visit the conflict-affected areas, but local groups say aid is
limited.
"Most internally displaced people are reliant on aid from
non-governmental organisations and the church," said Nawdin Lahpai of
the Kachin News Group, a news organisation in the area.
On Tuesday, Kachin organisations and communities around the world
sent a letter to Myanmar's President Thein Sein, who has twice ordered
the army stop the offensive.
"Fighting has occurred every day and has recently intensified,
forcing more and more people to flee their homes ... (The displaced are)
living in squalid conditions with nowhere to go," the letter said.
"We ... urge you to immediately put an end to the humanitarian crisis that is now happening in our homeland," it added.
WOMEN TARGETED
KWAT has documented some 200 cases of human rights abuses,
including the rape and sexual assault of at least 43 women and girls, of
whom 21 where killed, in the past year, Hkawng Seng Pan, KWAT’s deputy
coordinator, said.
"Women have been openly kept as sex slaves by the military
officers and gang raped. Recently a 48-year-old grandmother was
kidnapped, beaten and gang raped in a village," Pan said.
"This provides strong evidence of the government's military continuing to commit sexual violence with impunity," she added.
In February, the husband of a Kachin woman kidnapped and sexually
assaulted by the military tried to press charges but the Supreme Court
dismissed it without even hearing the husband, Pan said.
"Where can we get justice for the victim? We want to call for an independent inquiry," she added.
According to rights group Amnesty International's latest report, the Myanmar government denies such allegations of abuse.
PEACE TALKS YET TO SUCCEED
Myanmar's new quasi-civilian government, which came to power in
March 2011 ending half a century of iron-fisted military rule, has
embarked on a range of reforms that have boosted media freedom, changed
labour laws and led to ceasefire talks with ethnic rebel groups.
The government has reached ceasefire agreements with about a dozen groups.
About a third of Myanmar's 60 million people belong to ethnic
minorities and many of them resent what they see as domination by the
majority Burman community.
Talks with Kachin Independence Army (KIA) rebels and its
political leaders have yet to bear fruit, however, and in April, the
Myanmar government announced a shakeup of its peace negotiating teams, after six rounds of talks with the KIA.
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