YANGON: More than 200,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Myanmar after an alliance of ethnic minority groups launched an offensive against the military last month, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Fighting has raged since October 27 across northern Shan state near the Chinese border after the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Arakan Army (AA) launched attacks on the military.

The alliance has blocked vital trade routes to China and seized a border hub in what analysts say is the biggest military challenge to the junta since it seized power in 2021.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said that as of Wednesday, “more than 200,000 people” across Shan, Chin, Kayah and Mon states and Sagaing region have been “forcibly displaced due to the fighting”.

Junta says clashes intensifying near China border

At least 75 civilians including children have been killed and 94 people wounded in the fighting, UNOCHA said, citing initial reports from the field. Both sides have set up checkpoints on roads they control in Shan state and mobile communication remains patchy outside the main city of Lashio, hampering the delivery of aid, the UN said.

The junta has imposed martial law on several townships in the state, further hampering relief efforts, it added. The remoteness of the rugged, jungle-clad region — home to pipelines that supply oil and gas to China — and patchy communications make it difficult to verify casualty numbers.

The junta has admitted it has lost ground but dismissed claims by the alliance to have seized towns across northern Shan state as “propaganda”.

This week the AA launched fresh attacks on the military in western Rakhine state, shattering a fragile ceasefire that had held in the state. In Kayah state on the Thai border, anti-junta fighters said they were battling the military near state capital Loikaw.

Myanmar’s junta said on Wednesday that fighting with an alliance of ethnic minority groups was intensifying near the northern border with China, where military forces were under heavy attack by opponents using drones to drop bombs. Alliance fighters were using “hundreds” of drones to drop bombs on junta positions at Tamoenye in Shan state, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said.

They were also attacking a military position near the town of Laukkai, around 70 kilometres to the east, which the MNDAA has said it has surrounded and aims to capture.

The military have been “resisting their best”, the junta spokesman said, without specifying if it had suffered casualties. Hundreds of people have sought shelter in Shan’s Lashio town as the fighting rages, an AFP correspondent said.

This week the AA also launched attacks on security forces in Rakhine and Chin states near the border with India and said it seized police posts. Until this week a ceasefire between the junta and the AA in Rakhine had held, despite the ongoing clashes in the north.

Anti-coup fighters this week have also attacked security forces around Loikaw, the capital of Kayah state in the east.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2023