Rebel attack on Myanmar military posts kills 19

At least 19 people were killed yesterday in northern Myanmar when ethnic rebels attacked security force posts and a casino in an area bordering China, the most deadly flare-up in recent years that undercuts government efforts to win peace in the troubled country.

Rights defenders say clashes in the north have ramped up since January as the international community focuses on the Rohingya crisis in the west of the country.

The military stands accused of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the stateless minority in Rakhine.

The Ta'ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, one of several insurgent groups fighting for more autonomy in the north, said it launched the operation yesterday, while government and military sources confirmed the death toll.

Images and video from the skirmishes shared on social media showed armed men fanning out across a residential street while a rebel soldier took cover behind a car. The sound of automatic gunfire filled the air as ambulances picked up the wounded.

"Nineteen (people) were killed in fighting," an official with Myanmar's military told AFP, adding that two dozen had been wounded.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay said in a Facebook post that one police officer and three state-backed militia members had been killed while 15 of the dead were innocent civilians.

More than 100,000 displaced people now reside in camps in Kachin and Shan states since a ceasefire between the KIA the military broke down in 2011, according to the latest UN statistics. Those fleeing violence have sheltered in tents and even churches in Kachin, which is mainly Christian, as rights groups and rebels accuse the military of blocking aid.

Myanmar's patchwork of ethnic groups make up round a third of the population, but the Bamar, or Burmese, have filled the Buddhist-majority country's power structures since independence in 1948.

More than a third of Myanmar's townships are affected by unresolved conflict, according to a 2017 report from the Asia Foundation.