Almost 7,000 people belonging to the largely Christian minority group in Kachin, northern Myanmar, have fled their houses since fighting between the army and a rebel group flared up in early April, according to recent figures from the Red Cross.
‘It’s a war where civilians are being systematically targeted by members of Burma Army … [yet] the international community chooses to overlook it,’ political analyst and writer Stella Naw told the Guardian newspaper, with international attention on Myanmar focused on the humanitarian crisis facing the country’s Rohingya Muslims.
Invisible war
Thousands of lives have been lost and at least 120,000 people have been displaced in the decades-long conflict between the army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) since the military seized control of the country in 1962.
