100,000 more displaced

An estimated 100,000 people have been displaced by new fighting between Myanmar's military and rebel groups in the east of the coup-stricken country, the UN said yesterday. 

Myanmar has been in chaos and its economy paralysed since the generals ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's government in February, accusing it of fraud during 2020 elections.

The junta has failed to impose control since then. The security forces have killed at least 849 protesters and arrested more than 4,500 people, a rights group says.

Fighting has flared in several communities -- especially in townships that have seen a high death toll at the hands of police -- and some locals have formed "defence forces".

Recent clashes and "indiscriminate attacks by security forces against civilian areas" had forced an estimated 100,000 to flee their homes in eastern Kayah state near the Thai border, the UN's Myanmar office said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar junta's foreign minister had defended its plan for restoring democracy, state media reported yesterday, after a meeting at which Southeast Asian counterparts pressed the army to implement a regional agreement meant to end turmoil.

The junta has paid little heed to demands from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to respect a "consensus" agreed in late April to end violence and hold political talks with its opponents.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers expressed disappointment at the meeting in China on Monday at the "very slow" progress made by Myanmar on its proposal for ending the turmoil.

State media cited junta-appointed foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin as telling the Asean-China foreign ministers' meeting that the military had made progress on its own five-step roadmap for the country unveiled after its coup.