Troops in Myanmar are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the mainly Christian Kachin ethnic minority near the border with China, the missionary news agency Fides reported on Friday.Citing a local Catholic priest, Fides said fighting had forced 20,000 people to leave their homes so far and the number was increasing by the day.Priests and nuns in the area “are doing everything to help the ethnic Kachin refugees, almost all Christians, victims of a brutal repression carried out by the Burmese military”, the priest was quoted as telling the Rome-based agency.
Clashes began when the government struck an agreement with China on the construction of a dam in the northern region, which would force the evacuation and flooding of villages where the Kachin people live, Fides said.
“They are women, children and old people who are at the mercy of the soldiers. These, when they meet the Kachin villages, carry out, for revenge, all sorts of violence, abuse and ransacking,” the priest said.
“They kill old people and children, rape women, burn homes, confiscate properties. They use ruthless methods to ethnic cleansing,” he added.
The priest also said there was a risk of a “humanitarian emergency” in the area for refugees out in the open as the rainy season approaches.
Myanmar has been plagued by decades of civil war with armed ethnic minority militias since independence in 1948.
In recent weeks fighting has broken out with Kachin rebels.
Last week bomb blasts rattled three Myanmar cities in the latest in a series of explosions that authorities have mostly blamed on ethnic minority rebels.
The military junta handed over power to a nominally civilian administration in March after nearly half a century of army rule, following an election marred by complaints of intimidation and fraud.
Clashes began when the government struck an agreement with China on the construction of a dam in the northern region, which would force the evacuation and flooding of villages where the Kachin people live, Fides said.
“They are women, children and old people who are at the mercy of the soldiers. These, when they meet the Kachin villages, carry out, for revenge, all sorts of violence, abuse and ransacking,” the priest said.
“They kill old people and children, rape women, burn homes, confiscate properties. They use ruthless methods to ethnic cleansing,” he added.
The priest also said there was a risk of a “humanitarian emergency” in the area for refugees out in the open as the rainy season approaches.
Myanmar has been plagued by decades of civil war with armed ethnic minority militias since independence in 1948.
In recent weeks fighting has broken out with Kachin rebels.
Last week bomb blasts rattled three Myanmar cities in the latest in a series of explosions that authorities have mostly blamed on ethnic minority rebels.
The military junta handed over power to a nominally civilian administration in March after nearly half a century of army rule, following an election marred by complaints of intimidation and fraud.
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