Burma must protect civilians caught up in fighting, says UN

THE United Nations has urged Burma to protect civilians fleeing for their lives under artillery fire and aerial bombings as conflict escalates between the army and ethnic Kachin rebels.

With the eyes of the world still focused on the plight of Rohingya Muslims, more than 160,000 of whom have been forced from their homes since last August, the regime has allegedly stepped up atrocities and potential war crimes against another ethnic minority in the country’s northernmost state.

Yanghee Lee, the UN human rights expert, this week expressed grave concerns over a sharp spike in hostilities in Kachin State in April, reporting that heavy weapons used against civilian areas near the Chinese border had killed at least 10 people and caused thousands to abandon their homes.

“What we are seeing in Kachin State over the past few weeks is wholly unacceptable, and must stop immediately,” she said. “Innocent civilians are being killed and injured, and hundreds of families are now fleeing for their lives.”

The UN had warned in March that long-standing conflicts over greater autonomy in the largely Buddhist and Christian Kachin and Shan States had “recently intensified”, leading to reports of “serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law” committed by the security forces.

These reports included extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, destruction of property, torture, rape and forced labour. Clashes between the security forces and the Kachin Independence Army earlier this year trapped about 3,000 civilians.

According to the UN, the latest round of violence has now displaced a further 5,000 people. Nsang Gum San from the Kachin Alliance, a US network of Kachin communities and churches, told The Daily Telegraph that more than 2,000 people remained trapped by the violence, either used as “human shields” in villages or churches, or in the open jungle with no shelter.