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EIJING — About 10,000 people have fled northern Myanmar for China to escape fighting between the military and ethnic minority militias, the government in China’s Yunnan province said Friday.
On Thursday, militants who have long fought for autonomy for Myanmar’s Kokang minority, attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed.
Myanmar’s military rulers and the state-controlled press made no comment on the situation at the border.
People were continuing to cross over from Kokang in Myanmar late Friday, and Chinese authorities were housing them at seven separate locations along the border, the Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement faxed to media. It said 10,000 people had fled Myanmar into Yunnan.
Chinese authorities were providing medical services and taking measures to prevent disease, the statement said.
An aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan said they could hear guns and artillery being fired over the border, some 150 feet (50 meters) away, throughout the day.
Myanmar’s central government has rarely exerted control in Kokang — a mostly ethnic Chinese region in the northern Shan state — and essentially ceded control to a local militia after signing a cease-fire with them two decades ago. The region is one of several areas along Myanmar’s borders where minority militias are seeking autonomy from the central government.
But tensions between the government and the Kokang people have been rising in recent months, as the junta tries to consolidate its control of the country and ensure stability ahead of national elections next year — the first since the opposition National League for Democracy won in a landslide in 1990, a result the military ignored.
The crisis has turned a spotlight on China’s friendly ties with Myanmar’s authoritarian rulers. Beijing has consistently offered the military regime diplomatic support based on its avowed policy of nonintervention while China’s border trade and oil and gas deals have thrown an economic lifeline to the generals.
As the refugees poured in from Myanmar, Chinese authorities in Nansan housed them in unfinished buildings, some still with no windows, said the local factory manager, who would only give his surname, Li.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said local authorities were caring for about 4,000 refugees. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said, saying more detailed information was being gathered.
Tensions in Myanmar’s Kokang region rose earlier this month after Kokang militia leaders refused to allow their guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
After government soldiers raided the home of militia leader Peng Jiashen on Aug. 8, Peng’s forces began mobilizing. Peng’s troops were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
Kokang lies 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) southwest of Beijing and is surrounded by lush mountains in a region notorious for the production and use of heroin and methamphetamines, cross-border smuggling, gambling and prostitution.
The region’s links to China date back to the collapse of the Ming dynasty 350 years ago, when loyalists fled across the mountains into present-day Myanmar to escape Manchu invaders.
In recent years, the area has attracted a flood of businessmen from China who have opened hotels, restaurants and shops selling motorcycles, electronics and other imports that are either pricey or unavailable in other parts of the country.
Wary of the consequences of renewed conflict, many of those investors fled back across the border this month, according to Chinese reports.
EIJING — About 10,000 people have fled northern Myanmar for China to escape fighting between the military and ethnic minority militias, the government in China’s Yunnan province said Friday.
On Thursday, militants who have long fought for autonomy for Myanmar’s Kokang minority, attacked a police post along the border with China near the town of Laogai, according to the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The Washington-based lobbying group said several police officers were killed.
Myanmar’s military rulers and the state-controlled press made no comment on the situation at the border.
People were continuing to cross over from Kokang in Myanmar late Friday, and Chinese authorities were housing them at seven separate locations along the border, the Yunnan provincial government said in a brief statement faxed to media. It said 10,000 people had fled Myanmar into Yunnan.
Chinese authorities were providing medical services and taking measures to prevent disease, the statement said.
An aid worker and a factory manager in the Chinese town of Nansan said they could hear guns and artillery being fired over the border, some 150 feet (50 meters) away, throughout the day.
Myanmar’s central government has rarely exerted control in Kokang — a mostly ethnic Chinese region in the northern Shan state — and essentially ceded control to a local militia after signing a cease-fire with them two decades ago. The region is one of several areas along Myanmar’s borders where minority militias are seeking autonomy from the central government.
But tensions between the government and the Kokang people have been rising in recent months, as the junta tries to consolidate its control of the country and ensure stability ahead of national elections next year — the first since the opposition National League for Democracy won in a landslide in 1990, a result the military ignored.
The crisis has turned a spotlight on China’s friendly ties with Myanmar’s authoritarian rulers. Beijing has consistently offered the military regime diplomatic support based on its avowed policy of nonintervention while China’s border trade and oil and gas deals have thrown an economic lifeline to the generals.
As the refugees poured in from Myanmar, Chinese authorities in Nansan housed them in unfinished buildings, some still with no windows, said the local factory manager, who would only give his surname, Li.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said local authorities were caring for about 4,000 refugees. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said, saying more detailed information was being gathered.
Tensions in Myanmar’s Kokang region rose earlier this month after Kokang militia leaders refused to allow their guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Myanmar army command.
After government soldiers raided the home of militia leader Peng Jiashen on Aug. 8, Peng’s forces began mobilizing. Peng’s troops were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and members of a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
Kokang lies 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) southwest of Beijing and is surrounded by lush mountains in a region notorious for the production and use of heroin and methamphetamines, cross-border smuggling, gambling and prostitution.
The region’s links to China date back to the collapse of the Ming dynasty 350 years ago, when loyalists fled across the mountains into present-day Myanmar to escape Manchu invaders.
In recent years, the area has attracted a flood of businessmen from China who have opened hotels, restaurants and shops selling motorcycles, electronics and other imports that are either pricey or unavailable in other parts of the country.
Wary of the consequences of renewed conflict, many of those investors fled back across the border this month, according to Chinese reports.
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