Refugees who fled Myanmar into China after deadly clashes between junta forces and ethnic rebels trickled back across the border yesterday, but some said they feared going home to more unrest.
Officials in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province said 37,000 refugees had streamed into the country following days of fighting in Kokang, a mainly ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar’s Shan state.
Eight rebel fighters and 26 security forces were killed in the clashes in Myanmar’s remote northeast, state media reported late on Sunday, saying the unrest had ended. Two Chinese nationals were also killed, officials said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
At the border crossing in the Chinese town of Nansan, refugees were crossing into Myanmar in groups of about 40 at a time, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters witnessed. The occasional person came into China.
“The Myanmar government has told us through diplomatic channels to send them back,” Yunnan provincial government spokesman Li Hui told reporters.
“Those who want to go back can return. We are finding that most of these people want to go back to their homes,” he said.
“The Myanmar government is saying that it is calm over there. From what we see, we don’t think that there is any armed fighting,” he said.
But refugees interviewed by AFP in Nansan said they remained unconvinced by the junta’s claims that calm had been restored in Kokang, a town of about 150,000.
“They were shooting ordinary people. I saw it myself. We don’t believe what they say. We are afraid to go back,” 24-year-old farmer Li Jun said.
“They say they will not shoot again but they will shoot,” Li said.
Rows of blue tents have been set up in Nansan, nestled in rugged and lush mountains, to accommodate the refugees. China has provided them with food and medical care — but has warned Myanmar to resolve the conflict quickly.
Refugees were also being housed in a number of nearly half-finished buildings.
Li, the provincial government spokesman, said 13,000 refugees were staying in camps, while 10,000-20,000 more were believed to be living with friends and relatives in and around Nansan.
Kokang’s ethnic Chinese retain close ties with their kin across the porous border.
A Chinese clothing shop owner, who gave only his surname Chen, said he left Kokang with his wife amid the fighting.
“We have heard that our stores were being looted and that they are attacking the Chinese stores. We don’t know what happened to our store,” he said.
A reporter for the Global Times, an English-language state daily in China, who crossed the border into Kokang at the weekend also reported Chinese-owned restaurants and stores had been looted.
“The Myanmar government has committed to protect the safety and property of Chinese citizens,” the Yunnan government spokesman said, adding that Beijing had “expressed concern” on the issue.
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