Myanmar security forces found an explosives factory in an area near the Chinese border, where fighting with an ethnic militia last month forced more than 30,000 people to flee into China, state media said yesterday.
Police and soldiers raided a compound of seven buildings and found bombmaking equipment, the state-owned Myanma Ahlin newspaper said.
Reports on Friday said troops also found tens of thousands of stimulant tablets, drug-making equipment and hundreds of weapons in the region, which is known for drug smuggling.
It is not possible to independently confirm such reports from the remote, traditionally ethnic Chinese northern region.
Myanmar is trying to secure the Kokang region after several days of fighting last month between government soldiers and ethnic Kokang troops known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.
The government has said the fighting began after troops seized a weapons factory and summoned four militia leaders, and the militia raided a police checkpoint and took 39 police officers hostage.
Fourteen officers were later killed, leading to full-scale fighting that state newspaper said killed 12 soldiers and eight militia members.
Myanmar has been pressuring wary ethnic militia members to give up their arms and become border guards. The junta wants stability in border regions where several armed ethnic groups operate before next year’s scheduled national elections, the first in nearly 20 years.
Thousands of the refugees returned to Myanmar earlier this week, and China said it had received assurances from Myanmar that it would restore peace and security along the border area.
All three state-run newspapers in Myanmar ran commentaries yesterday accusing the foreign media of trying to drive a wedge between ethnic groups and the government ahead of the elections.
The Kokang were the first of 17 armed ethnic groups to reach a peace agreement with the government in March 1989.
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