More than 2,000 villagers from Myanmar’s restive Karen state have fled across the border to Thailand to avoid possible fighting between rebel forces and government troops, an aid group said yesterday.
The human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide said more than 1,200 villagers in temporary camps along the Thai border have fled because of fears the government was planning to launch attacks.
The Karen Human Rights Group said another 700 villagers fled potential clashes between the rebel Karen National Liberation Army, the military arm of the Karen National Union (KNU), and government troops and their supporters, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.
The KNU has been fighting for half a century for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. Myanmar’s military continues to launch sweeping counterinsurgency operations in Karen areas along the Thai border, displacing thousands of civilians. Many join some 100,000 of their countrymen in refugee camps in Thailand.
Christian Solidarity and pro-democracy groups including the US Campaign for Burma called on the UN to intervene to prevent a humanitarian crisis.
“The reports we have received indicate that Burma army troops may attack within hours,” Alexa Papadouris, an advocacy director for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said in a statement. “This is an urgent situation which requires immediate international attention.”
A Myanmar government spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment on the reports of fighting.
The groups urged the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the country’s military regime and establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity.
At least 1.5 million people have already fled such attacks, said Aung Din, cofounder of the US Campaign for Burma.
Ceasefire talks between the KNU and the government broke down in 2004, and the Myanmar army launched a major offensive in Karen State in eastern Myanmar in 2005.
Since then, army offensives, coupled with divisions within the organization, have reduced the group’s armed presence over the past decade.
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