Karen People Cut Off From Help in Myanmar After Fighting Drives Them From Their Homes
Around 1,000 ethnic Karen villagers have been cut off from help in Myanmar’s Kayin state by renewed fighting between government troops and rebel forces, with relief groups now unable to reach them with badly needed food, blankets, and medical supplies, sources say.
Fighting between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Union (KNU), the country’s oldest ethnic rebel army, resumed in southern Kayin state in early December despite a nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA) the ethnic army signed in 2015.
Clashes in the Kyauk Gyi township in the Nyaung Lay Bin district of the state’s Bago region have now driven nearly 1,000 residents from six villages in KNU-controlled areas into remote areas where they wait to return home, one local villager told RFA.
Reported by Saw Nyunt Thaung for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Richard Finney.
