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NEW YORK - Some 3000 Burmese are trekking through Myanmar's Karen state to flee Army attacks and search for food, Human Rights Watch said.
It had received reports that more than 200 civilians had arrived at camps close to the Thai border after walking for 17 days while 3000 others were moving towards border settlements in Myanmar. "The military attacks villages, uses civilians for forced labour and steals their food and money, forcing people to flee," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.
The Karen National Liberation Army has conducted intermittent guerrilla warfare for some 58 years.
In the past year, a campaign conducted by the ruling military junta has displaced 27,000 villagers, with at least 45 civilians killed by government forces in Karen alone, HRW said. Across the country this year, more than 82,000 people have been forced to flee warfare and 232 villages have been destroyed.
- REUTERS
