Reuters
More than 100 days after Myanmar’s military took power from the country’s democratically elected government, fighting between troops and ethnic insurgents has left tens of thousands of displaced women and children facing a humanitarian crisis, groups monitoring the situation said Thursday.
Since launching a Feb. 1 coup, the military, or Tatmadaw, has gone on the offensive in Myanmar’s remote Kachin and Karen states, regularly conducting airstrikes against insurgents in the two regions. The intensified clashes have caused hundreds of thousands of residents to flee their homes and rely on aid as internally displaced persons (IDPs).
The Karen National Union’s (KNU’s) Fifth Brigade announced on March 5 that it would stand with protesters nationwide in demanding the return of a federal democracy, prompting an intensification of fighting with the Tatmadaw. Refugees have said that around 100,000 people have since been displaced from the Fifth Brigade’s area of control alone—more than 80 percent of whom are women, children, and the elderly.