Forgotten war escalates; 10,000 people displaced
LAIZA, Myanmar — On the front lines, the army is pounding rebels with air strikes and artillery. In the displacement camps, terrified civilians are building bomb shelters of sandbags and stones. And everywhere in this troubled swath of Myanmar’s north, there is a growing sense the conflict will only get worse.
While the world is focused on the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, a civil war is raging here, pitting government forces against another of the country’s minorities — the Kachins, mostly Christian. It’s one of the longest-running wars on Earth, and it has intensified dramatically in recent months, with at least 10,000 people displaced since January alone, according to the United Nations.
The crisis, though, is also one of the world’s most forgotten, overshadowed by violence against Rohingya in the west, nearly 700,000 of whom have been driven into exile by the military. While the conflicts differ, they share a tragic theme, said Zau Raw, who heads a rebel committee overseeing humanitarian aid in the mountainous sliver of territory the militants control.
Just like the Rohingya, the Kachin have begun to realize that “the army wants to wipe us out,” he said.
The Kachin have fought for greater autonomy in this predominantly Buddhist nation since 1961. But their campaign is part of a much broader struggle for power pitting the ethnic Burman majority — who control the military and top government posts — against dozens of ethnic minorities.
At least 20 of those groups have taken up arms since independence from Britain in 1948, and the government in recent years has signed ceasefires with 10 of them. Six other groups, including the Kachin, are still fighting.