An internally displaced man in Hai Pa IDP camp hanged himself on Saturday, according to a local aid worker in Mong Hsu Township.

Aik Nub, also known as Yi Mon, was 48 years old and came from Koong Nim village. He was found dead at about 12 p.m. on December 19 on a tree in the camp compound.

“He looked depressed every day…Aik Nub was stressed because he had to flee from his home and was unable to go back,” said Nang Jing, an assistant to the IDPs in Mong Hsu and one of the local witnesses who discovered Aik Nub’s body. “He didn’t have job and couldn’t feed his family.”

She speculated that this situation could have contributed to his suicide.

“He has one son and now his wife is also pregnant,” Nang Jing added.

An ethnic Ta’ang (Palaung), Aik Nub was one of 10,000 people who fled their homes during the conflict between the government military and the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA-N), which began on October 6.

On December 15, SHAN reported that some of villagers from Koong Nim village returned to their homes on December 13, where they were forced by the Burma Army to go back to IDP camps in Hai Pa village.

On Wednesday, a coalition of Shan community-based organizations (CBOs) released a statement demanding the Burma government withdraw their troops and allow over 3,000 displaced civilians in central Shan State to return to their villages.

BY SAI AW / Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N)