A convoy carrying diplomats from the ASEAN countries was attacked by an unidentified group of assailants in Myanmar’s southern Shan State on Sunday, a military official said on Monday, reports AFP news agency.
The convoy was travelling to eastern Taunggyi town when it came under the attack, a foreign diplomat based in Yangon told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A senior military official also confirmed the attack to AFP, adding that the convoy was fired upon.
"A convoy with some diplomats was attacked yesterday morning," the diplomat was quoted as saying.
Weeks after their boat stranded off the Indian coast, many Rohingya are feared dead at sea; at least 160 people are still aboard and on the brink of starvation, according to family members and the UN agency for refugees.
Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose sister and 5-year-old niece are on the vessel, told CNN on Wednesday that two children and a woman had died, and those who were still alive had "no water, food, or medicine."
Intense fighting between the military junta and rebel groups have forced hundreds of monks to flee temples in eastern Myanmar as crackdown intensifies, according to media reports.
The United Nations (UN) estimates that almost 90,000 people have fled, with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) placing that figure far higher at 170,000.
The country has been in turmoil for the past 11 months since the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown in a coup on February 11.
When a court in Myanmar on Monday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in custody, it closed a chapter on an era of weak and compromised democracy in a Southeast Asian nation long ruled by a military fist.
But already, a new democratic movement has emerged younger, more progressive, more confrontational and ready to look beyond Suu Kyi for a guiding light. Hope now rests with an immensely popular shadow government that formed after Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, was detained by the military in a Feb. 1 coup.
Abdulla Shahid, the president of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, on Tuesday clarified to WION that Myanmar did not speak at the assembly hall because it failed to make a request as per the protocols.
Speaking exclusively to WION’s Executive Editor Palki Sharma Upadhyay, he sought to put to rest speculation that the country now under a military junta was not allowed to speak at the behest of US, China and Russia.