Shelter, supply concerns up as more people flee Chin state

YANGON • People displaced by renewed fighting in Myanmar's Chin state have voiced concerns over shelter and supplies as more flee the conflict that has sprung up between the army and insurgents opposed to the junta that seized power in February.

The exodus also threatens to push more people over the nearby border with India, where an Indian government official said more than 15,000 had sought refuge since the Feb 1 coup that has plunged the South-east Asian country into chaos.

"When it rains, we don't have strong shelters," said Mai, who fled on foot from the western town of Mindat at the weekend and is now at a village 15km away. "There is a shortage of oil and fuel for motorcycles. There are no medical supplies. Even if we have money, we cannot buy groceries," she told Reuters by a messaging app.

Government forces used artillery to flush out rebels from Mindat after fighting broke out on May 12, a spokesman for a local insurgent group said, and later cut off its water supply.

One resident who did not want to be named told AFP that most of those who had been trapped in the town by the fighting had now fled, but those left behind faced a grim struggle for basic supplies.

"All the people rely on a government pipe for their water supply... in these conditions we have to stop washing if we want to be able to cook."

Thousands of people left Mindat after the army attacked to uproot fighters of the Chinland Defence Force, who are aligned with a National Unity Government formed by the junta's opponents.

"There are reports of civilians killed and injured and civilian property damaged or destroyed," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday. "Access by humanitarian partners to the people fleeing violence or those still in their homes is challenging due to insecurity."

Since overthrowing and detaining elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the junta has struggled to impose its authority in the face of daily protests, paralysing strikes and an upsurge of fighting against old and new groups of ethnic minority fighters.

The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said insurgents had attacked two other locations in Chin state, which borders India.

Residents said the fighting had prompted many people to flee the town of Kanpetlet, about 20km from Mindat as the crow flies, but much further by road in the hilly state, a largely Christian part of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.

At least 10 people had been killed in Chin state in the past week, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. It puts the death toll since the coup at 805, a figure disputed by the army.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE