Unknown attackers shot and wounded two people in a convoy of eight vehicles marked with the emblem of the Myanmar Red Cross Society that was attempting to transport civilians displaced by fighting in Laukkai, yesterday on the Chinese border, a witness said.
Red Cross spokeswoman Shwe Cin Myint said there hadn’t been an attack like this before.
A government soldier blamed the attack on an ethnic Kokang force called Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).
Fight broke out on February 9 between the Myanmar army and MNDAA.
At least 47 Myanmar soldiers and 26 MNDAA fighters have been killed since then, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported, and thousands of civilians have fled, either to other areas in Myanmar or over the border into China.
Myanmar President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in the Kokang region in the east and imposed a three-month period of martial law there in an announcement on state television on Tuesday night.
The clashes have alarmed China, which fears that the influx of Kokang refugees will swell, and called this week for peace on the border.
In 2009, fighting between the rebels and the army pushed tens of thousands of refugees into southwestern China.
The United States, which has been an enthusiastic supporter of reforms in Myanmar and efforts to bring about peace between the government and ethnic insurgent armies, said it was “deeply concerned” over the continued fighting and particularly by reports of the shooting of two Red Cross workers.
The MNDAA was formerly part of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful Chinese-backed guerrilla force that fought the Myanmar government before splintering in 1989.
(Reuters)
