BANGKOK — More than 50 government soldiers and police officers have been killed in Myanmar in recent days in clashes with an armed ethnic group, the state news media said on Friday, in the latest setback for the government’s national reconciliation efforts.
The fighting near the border with China between the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese minority, and government forces is a renewal of a longstanding battle for territory in an impoverished, mountainous area with a history of drug trafficking.
The clashes left 47 soldiers and seven police officers dead and 73 members of the government forces wounded, the state news media said. A statement attributed to the Kokang said three of their fighters had been killed. As during previous fighting in the area, civilians fled across the border into China, according to local Chinese officials who did not provide figures.
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U Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former rebel who monitors the ethnic conflicts in northern Myanmar, estimates that the Kokang rebel force numbers around 2,000.
“Peng Jiasheng’s latest approach is to establish a new wave of guerrilla warfare against the government,” Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw said on Friday. “He is old, but a new generation will play a significant role in this conflict.”
Patrick Boehler contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Wai Moe from Yangon, Myanmar.
