More refugees pour into China amid fighting in Burma

The escalation in fighting between Burmese government troops and a faction of the local Kokang militia had "caused panic among Burmese citizens along the border" and the flood of refugees was "still increasing" as of Thursday afternoon, the Yunnan provincial government reported on its official website.

 The Yunnan provincial government said it was providing for the basic health and living needs of the refugees, acting out of humanitarianism and the need to "safeguard the friendly relations and border stability between the two nations." 

 In a report on Wednesday, the Chongqing Evening News said some 10,000 people had already crossed the border into Yunnan's Nansan district earlier this month.

The refugees included Chinese citizens, a customs official in Nansan told the German Press Agency dpa by telephone.

The influx followed the Burmese Army's occupation of Laogai, the capital of the Kokang region in the eastern Shan State according to resistance sources on the Thai-Burmese border.

Laogai has been under Burmese Army control since Monday, said Khuensai Jaipen, editor of the Shan Herald News Agency, a resistance media that monitors news in the remote Shan State.

The seizure of the capital came after a split in the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), as the Kokang army has been called since it signed a ceasefire with the Burmese government 20 years ago.

Burmese troops and Kokang rebels led by Peng Jiasheng clashed on Thursday in Mangpiang Village, near Laogai, according to the Shan Herald News Agency. 

The Kokang attacked a Burmese border police post, killing at least one police officer, sources said. 

Peng, the chairman of the MNDAA, issued a statement Thursday citing a need for talks to settle the escalating conflict.

Peng has accused the Burmese military of setting up an alternative Kokang force under Bai Souqian as a divide-and-rule tactic.

"The formation of new Central Committee by Bai Souqian with the support of Burma junta is illegal and illegitimate. It does not represent the people of the Special Region No. (1), Shan State (North)," Peng said in his statement, made available to dpa.

The Kokang are one of a dozen ethnic minority groups who were previously fighting the Burmese army for the autonomy of their region. The rebels signed a ceasefire with the Burmese army 20 years ago, but have strongly opposed recent demands that they lay down their arms and form a border militia under the government, prior to a general election planned next year.     

The Kokang, an ethnic Han Chinese minority group who have lived for centuries in north-eastern Burma, were one of the core groups in the Burmese Communist Party, now defunct, and are known to still have close ties with mainland China.