About 90,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar due to the intensifying conflict between the country’s military rulers and an alliance of ethnic armed groups, the United Nations said.
“As of 9 November, almost 50,000 people in northern Shan were forced into displacement,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Friday.
A further 40,000 people have been displaced by clashes between the military and its opponents in neighbouring Sagaing region and Kachin state since early November, OCHA added.
Two weeks ago, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed alliances, launched a coordinated attack on a dozen military outposts in northern Shan state, which sits on the country’s eastern border with China, and captured the border town of Chin Shwe Haw.
The offensive is the most serious test for the generals since they seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
