NANSAN – Refugees who fled to China from armed clashes in northeast Burma began going back yesterday, overcoming worries about safety to return to shops and homes they feared would be looted.
Burma troops appeared to have won control of Kokang yesterday, a heavily ethnic Chinese enclave controlled by local rulers and their militia, after weeks of fighting that forced tens of thousands of residents to flee to neighbouring Yunnan province in China.
The Burma government said on Sunday the situation had returned to normal, adding that 26 government soldiers or police had been killed.
The conflict was triggered after Burma deployed troops in the area to disarm insurgents.
Burma wants ethnic groups to take part in an election next year, the first in two decades. Activists and observers say the junta sent in its soldiers because it is trying to forcibly recruit rebel fighters for an army-run border patrol force.
The Yunnan province government has said it has sheltered 37,000 refugees in Nansan and other towns near the border, but China has shown no eagerness to host them for long.
“What I can tell you is the border situation is returning to normal,” Chinese public security ministry spokesman Wu Heping told reporters in Beijing, declining further comment.
By afternoon, growing crowds of Kokang residents felt safe enough to begin returning to their homes, with hundreds pressing past border checks shouldering bundles of blankets and clothes.
“Of course I’m scared [to go back], but there’s no choice,” said Liu Shurong, one of the refugees about to return to Kokang.
“If you don’t go back to guard your shop, it will be looted. Many of my neighbours have lost all their belongings.”
By late on Monday afternoon, supervising officials estimated, about a third to a half of the Kokang refugees in Nansan had gone back across the border. Chinese troops continued to shepherd them on to trucks and buses taking them to the border gate.
At the border crossing, Chinese guards were allowing Burmese citizens to return, but barring Chinese nationals unless they held special passes.
“We can only say that the Burma government has told us the situation there [in Kokang] has stabilised,” Li Hui, director of the information office for China’s Yunnan province, told reporters at the border gate. “There should be no trouble for now.”
China is one of Burma’s few diplomatic backers and has deflected pressure from the West over the military government’s tough steps against pro-democracy campaigners. Keeping large numbers of the refugees, who include fleeing members of the defeated Kokang militia, could rile Burma.
But many refugees spoke of returning with ambivalence.
“People will want to go back some time, but we can’t count out more trouble,” said Huang Yuliang, a businessman from Kokang, who said he would wait before deciding whether to go back. – (Reuters)