Myanmar declares state of emergency

LASHIO: Myanmar declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in a conflict-torn border region where ferocious fighting between the army and ethnic rebels has forced thousands of civilians to flee. Fugitives from the growing violence in northeast of the country described how they fled airstrikes and gun battles between the army and ethnic rebels, as the country’s president vowed “not to lose an inch” of territory. The clashes between the army and Kokang rebels in Shan state have uprooted tens of thousands in the past week, with Beijing saying it has stepped up border controls after some 30,000 fled into its Yunnan province. A monastery in the Shan town of Lashio, some 140 kilometers south of the conflict zone, has become a temporary shelter for thousands who have fled the violence, most with little more than a few plastic bags of belongings. Many are temporary workers who have returned to their homes in other parts of Myanmar. But at least 200 people are seeking refuge in the monastery’s cramped dormitory after fleeing intense fighting around the Kokang settlement of Laukkai, a now near-deserted border town and the epicenter of the fighting. “We constantly heard the noise of firing — both from guns and big weapons. It was so loud. Sometimes I thought the bullets were flying by my head,” Win Thaung Tun told AFP. The 28-year-old Mandalay construction worker said he had lived in Laukkai for five years, attracted by the higher wages paid in Chinese currency, before fleeing the town on Friday. Clashes between the ethnically Chinese Kokang and soldiers erupted on Feb. 9. -arabnews