MYANMAR’S campaign against Rohingya Muslims has taken the spotlight off a protracted offensive against another minority, it has been warned.
In the north of the country, the government is also intensifying operations against the predominantly Christian Kachin.
Zau Raw heads a rebel committee overseeing humanitarian aid in the sliver of territory the militants control along the Chinese frontier.
Just like the Rohingya, the Kachin have begun to realise that “the army wants to wipe us out”, he said.
The war has intensified sharply in recent months, with at least 10,000 people displaced since January alone, according to the UN.
Although military atrocities do not match the scale of those documented against the Rohingya over the past year, a UN fact-finding mission in March reported “marked similarities” between the conflicts.
The Kachin have fought for greater autonomy in the predominantly Buddhist nation since 1961.
Just as in Rakhine, the UN has received new reports of grave abuse by security forces, including killings, abductions, pillage, torture, rape and forced labour. And just like Rakhine, the government has restricted humanitarian access to desperate populations who have fled, around 120,000 people in Kachin and neighbouring Shan states, according to local officials.
Those restrictions have grown significantly tighter since Aung
San Suu Kyi took office in 2016, Zau Raw said.
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