Ethnic army seizes city on Myanmar-China border — Radio Free Asia

An ethnic military captured a city close to the Chinese language border, lower than every week after officers met in Myanmar’s capital to debate cooperation between the 2 international locations, residents instructed Radio Free Asia on Friday. 

Myanmar’s navy junta, which seized all main governmental seats in a 2021 coup d’etat, invited a Chinese language envoy to Naypyidaw on Monday to debate the Kachin Independence Military’s mass seizure of navy camps and subsequent combating on the border. Some border gates in Kachin state have nonetheless not been reopened, political analysts and residents instructed RFA. 

The insurgent group has captured 60 junta camps since combating started on March 7 and now controls parts of two main commerce routes in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state, considered one of which runs alongside China’s border. 

The Kachin Independence Military, headquartered in border city Lai Zar, captured one other main metropolis practically 160 kilometers (100 miles) south on Thursday. Insurgent troops have occupied town since March 29, however weren’t capable of negotiate the junta’s give up till Thursday, Lwegel residents mentioned. 

All administration departments beneath the junta have been sealed off and their employees have left town, a resident instructed RFA on Friday, including that Kachin troops at the moment are deployed all through town.

“Town has been seized. Kachin Independence Military troops have arrived within the metropolis,” he mentioned. “All administrative departments have been closed, and Kachin nationwide flags have been seen in some locations. Troopers and the police are nonetheless trapped.”

Along with Kachin nationwide flags hanging on the Common Administration Division, market and hospitals within the metropolis, they’ve additionally issued notices that solely approved personnel will likely be allowed at border gates and administrative departments, he added. Troopers and different navy personnel in Lwegel have been relegated to a junta base close by. 

RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein for touch upon the navy’s give up, however he didn’t reply by the point of publication.

Kachin Independence Military data officer Col. Naw Bu instructed RFA that though the previous administration employees had left, the anti-junta group’s administrative processes had not but began within the metropolis’s 21 authorities workplaces.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.