19 dead in Myanmar fighting

MYITKYINA, Myanmar: At least 19 people were killed on Saturday in northern Myanmar when ethnic rebels attacked security force posts and a casino in an area bordering China, the most deadly flare-up in recent years that undercuts government efforts to win peace in the troubled country.

Rights defenders say clashes in the north have ramped up since January as the international community focuses on the Rohingya crisis in the west of the country.

The military stands accused of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the stateless minority in Rakhine.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, one of several insurgent groups fighting for more autonomy in the north, said it launched the operation on Saturday, while government and military sources confirmed the death toll.

Images and video from the skirmishes shared on social media showed armed men fanning out across a residential street while a rebel soldier took cover behind a car. The sound of automatic gunfire filled the air as ambulances picked up the wounded.

"Nineteen people were killed in fighting," an official with Myanmar’s military told AFP, adding that two dozen had been wounded.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay said in a Facebook post that one police officer and three state-backed militia members had been killed while 15 of the dead were innocent civilians.

He called the operation terrorism.

"The attack to target innocent people is not asking for ethnic rights," he said. "It is just a destructive terrorist attack."

A statement posted on the page of Myanmar’s commander-in-chief said military columns were in pursuit of the "terrorist insurgents".

TNLA spokesman Major Mai Aik Kyaw told AFP that they attacked joint military and militia posts and a casino just outside the Shan State town of Muse and on a road to Lashio.

"We fight because of heavy fighting in our region and the serious offensive in Kachin State," he said, referring to fresh confrontations in Myanmar’s northernmost state between the military and the TNLA-aligned Kachin Independence Army.

He challenged the government statistics about the civilian toll from Saturday’s violence, saying it was much lower.

"We feel sorry for civilian deaths. We are sorry. But it’s hard to say how they were killed during the fighting," he said.

The TNLA said later on Saturday on its Facebook page that six civilians died, but they put the number of state-backed militia members killed at 25, well above the government figure.

Meanwhile, Riot police in Yangon used batons on Saturday to break up a protest in support of victims of fighting in the northern Myanmar state of Kachin, arresting several of the organisers.

Authorities had refused permission for the protest in Myanmar´s main city and when police prevented some 300 people from marching they staged a sit-in, chanting anti-war slogans and waving light blue flags to symbolise peace.

Scuffles and fistfights between several dozen riot police and protest organisers and journalists covering the event broke out shortly after the organisers ended the sit-in.