Volunteers are scrambling to provide food to hundreds of villagers who have fled fighting between armed ethnic groups in northern Shan State. More than 300 people staying at the Botae Buddhist monastery in Hsipaw are suffering from hunger.

Fighting between the Restoration Council of Shan State and the Shan State Progress Party and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army drove them out of their villages next to the Namma River in March and they have not been working regularly since then, a volunteer told SHAN.

”They had nothing to eat when they returned home, so we gave them food. And now they have to flee again. These people have really suffered,” he said.

Another source reported that the villagers could not take any food with them when they arrived at the monastery by boat.

The junta’s General Administration Development office for the township ordered the committee helping them to test everyone for COVID-19.

In nearby Kyaukme Township, over 1,000 people are still displaced from the fighting between the armed groups.

In Muse District, near the Chinese border, junta forces arrested a Mongkoe farmer on his way to his farm on 1 November.

“Several people witnessed soldiers detaining the man on the road. His body was found near his farm yesterday, 8 November,” a man from Mongkoe told SHAN. “His left leg was broken and I think he was tortured before they killed him. I do not know why the soldiers held him in the first place.

The military has been fighting with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army in Muse District for months and has sent reinforcements.