As the Myanmar army's bombs started falling near her home in Kachin state, Nlam Numrang Doi and her neighbors decided they had no choice but to grab what they could and scatter into the jungle. The onslaught is part of a decades-long government campaign to defeat Kachin rebels fighting for greater autonomy for the largely Christian minority group in Myanmar's far north. "What we are seeing in Kachin state over the past few weeks is wholly unacceptable, and must stop immediately," Yanghee Lee, the U.N.'s human rights expert for Myanmar, said last week. A 17-year cease-fire between the government and Kachin Independence Army was broken in 2011, when the army entered rebel territory and attacked one of their outposts. "Stopping the minister and Christian leaders from rescuing those civilians shows that the army is more powerful than the civilian government," said Lagang Zegyung, a lawmaker representing Kachin state.

Source: ABC News May 08, 2018 07:03 UTC