© Partners Relief & Development
The 59-page report documents first-hand testimony and frontline photographs of the increasingly brutal civil war in Burma’s Kachin State, which broke out on June 9 between the Burma army and the Kachin Independence Army, ending a 17-year-long ceasefire agreement.
Partners has traveled to the conflict zone several times since June and documented torture, extrajudicial killing, open fire on civilians, human shielding, unlawful arrest and detention, forced labor, forced relocation, displacement, property theft and property destruction by the Burma army. An estimated 30,000 civilians have fled the conflict and abuses by the Burma army since the war began in June
While the political situation in lowland Burma is being interpreted as a major breakthrough, the situation for millions in the ethic areas is worse than it’s been in two decades
While Burma’s so called civilian leaders relax tyrannical rule in the plains, their military continues to rape, kill, and abuse the very people whose wishes they claim to represent.