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Fighting in central Myanmar has trapped about 1,000 people in a monastery where they are running out of food and the sick and wounded face death without medical help, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.
Fighting across Myanmar has displaced about 3 million people, according to humanitarian agencies, with little prospect of relief as the military, which seized power in 2021, struggles against increasingly determined insurgent forces.
Some of the worst violence has been in the Sagaing region where the military often accuses civilians of supporting the insurgents, who launch guerrilla attacks and melt away. In response, junta forces take out their anger on villagers, rights groups and residents say.
In Indaw town, in the north of Sagaing, about 1,000 residents who did not flee earlier with most other residents have become cut off by junta blockades in a monastery with dwindling supplies of food and medical supplies, residents said.
A 28-year-old woman and 20-year-old man died last week from untreated battle wounds with prospects grim for others, said one Indaw resident who escaped.
“Although people tried to leave, the junta troops didn’t allow them to,” said the resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals.
“Several children are suffering from head injuries. They’re being treated with whatever medicine they have to hand.”
Five civilians were killed and six were wounded on Aug. 16 in fighting between the junta forces and the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, and its allies, as they tried unsuccessfully to seize military positions, residents said.
More than 20,000 residents were able to flee Indaw, but Buddhist monks, children, elderly people, and civil servants aligned with the junta administration are among those trapped, the residents said.
RFA telephoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, to ask about the situation but he did not answer calls.
The KIA, which is fighting for self-determination for the ethnic minority Kachin people, has made significant gains in Kachin state and the Sagaing region since late last year.
A three-member alliance of rebel factions in Shan state, to the east, has captured major towns and military bases while the military has also lost ground to ethnic minority insurgents in Rakhine state in the west, and in Kayah and Kayin states in the east, as well as in parts of the deep south.
In southern Sagaing, thousands of villagers have fled from junta raids in Khin-U township, 215 km (134 miles) south of Indaw, since Tuesday, residents there said.
Junta troops burned homes in two villages and occupied eight others, said a relief worker.
“Residents are fleeing everywhere, especially to villages they know are safe. Others are going to urban areas,” said the relief worker, who also declined to be named for security reasons.
On Friday, pro-democracy fighters in Khin-U township tried to capture a junta stronghold in Ma Daung Hla village but were forced to retreat due to airstrikes, which killed 10 members of the insurgent force, said an official from a rebel group who also declined to be identified.
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Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.