ICC Note: About 5000 people gathered in Myitkyina, the capital of northern Myanmar’s Kachin state to demand the government to rescue thousands of displaced Kachin IDPs trapped in forests amid latest fighting between the KIA and Myanmar military.  

05/01/2018 Myanmar (Radio Free Asia) – About 5,000 people protested in the capital of northern Myanmar’s Kachin state on Monday to demand that the government rescue displaced civilians trapped in forests amid fighting between the Myanmar military and an ethnic armed group.

More than 3,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been driven from their homes by recent clashes in the long-running conflict between the national army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

About 1,000 villagers in Injanyang township fled clashes that flared on April 24, heading to Tanphaye village on the outskirts of Myitkina where they are staying in nearby woods.

The latest fighting comes on the heels of battles in Kachin’s Tanaing and Hpakant townships that stranded 2,000 villagers with little food last week.

Police stopped the protesters, who also urged the Myanmar army to end what they called indiscriminate shelling, as they walked along a public thoroughfare.

“People have to adhere to about 10 criteria in order to have a peaceful assembly,” said Kachin state Police Colonel Than Oo. “We had to stop them because they protested along a public road.”

About 200 Kachin youths erected a protest camp in the evening outside the No. 8 High School in Myitkyina, but they had to dismantle it after Khat Aung, the state’s chief minister, did not grant permission to the students for the camp.

“We applied for permission to protest and we got it, but someone who doesn’t act in accordance with the law asked us to stop,” said Sut Swai Htwe, the organizer of the protest camp.

“Everybody knows who he is,” she said. “Authorities say something and do another thing that’s different from what they said. We will open our protest camp again, but we can’t say where it will be.”

“As long as about 3,000 IDPs are not freed from where they are trapped, we will continue our protest and demand that authorities act according to the law and in a nonviolent manner,” she said.

Over the years, hostilities in the region, which lies between India and China, have displaced more than 90,000 people who have sought safety in Buddhist monasteries, Christian churches, or IDP camps in the state.

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