Villagers fled after hearing the sound of gunfire in the Mong Yaw area of Lashio.
A Burma Army offensive against the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in Lashio Township’s Mong Yaw area led to fighting which displaced more than 100 locals on Tuesday.
Villagers told SHAN that they heard gunfire from the nearby villages of Panglaw and Loisan at around 4 a.m. and fled.
“Now there are over 100 IDPs [internally displaced people],” Mong Yaw local Sai Kham said. “Some of them took refuge in relatives’ homes, but villagers in three or four vehicles went to Lashio.”
The clashes broke out about three miles south of Mong Yaw, following Burma Army troops arriving in Panglaw on Monday evening. According to one displaced individual, the soldiers reportedly asked the village headman about the movement of the TNLA in the area.
Additionally, government forces came to an area east of Mong Yaw, in the Mong Kyet-Pang Shaw area near the Salween River, around four days earlier.
Northern Alliance members—including the TNLA—are scheduled to meet the government’s peace commission in Kunming, China, today.
