Ethnic rebels in Myanmar have killed no fewer than 23 government soldiers in days of fighting near the Chinese border, a spokesman for the group disclosed on Friday, in the latest clashes likely to worry powerful neighbour Beijing.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the country has been in turmoil since a military coup in February, which sparked huge pro-democracy protests, a bloody crackdown as well as renewed fighting in ethnic border areas.
Clashes broke out in Mongko, Shan state, on August 28 when troops tried to seize a base from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the group’s spokesman and local media reports said.
‘They came to take our base. They were hurt a lot as we were waiting at the top of the mountain and they were at the bottom. We shot them as they were coming,’ an MNDAA spokesman told reporters.
At least fifteen soldiers were killed on August 28 and eight more in renewed clashes on September 1, he said, adding one MNDAA fighter had been killed.
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The military said Monday an officer and an undisclosed number of personnel from other ranks were killed in fighting with the MNDAA in Mongko on August 28.
It did not respond to questions on the alleged later clashes.
Myanmar has more than 20 ethnic rebel groups, many of which hold territory in the country’s border regions.
A messy struggle over autonomy, as well as control of lucrative drug production and natural resources, has long pitted them against each other and the military.
Video published last month by Chinese state media CGTN which was obtained by Africa Today News, New York claimed to show the military fighting the Kachin Independence Army — another group that operates in northern Shan state — and ‘several other ethnic armed groups’.
Stray bullets from the clash had landed in China and caused ‘damage to some buildings and fear among local residents‘, it added.
Africa Today News, New York understands that many rebel groups in Myanmar’s north share close cultural ties with China, speaking Chinese dialects and using the country’s yuan currency.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK