More than 120 homes in Je Yang camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Burma’s Kachin State were relocated this weekend after a landslide killed five residents last Tuesday.

Doi Pyi Sa, head of the Refugee Relief Committee for the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), said that 123 houses were previously at the foot of a hill, but were relocated after a heavy downpour caused the deadly landslide.

“After five residents were killed by the landslide on 22 July, we relocated houses that were close to the bottom of the hill – there are 123 houses in total,” Doi Pyi Sa said.

Opened in June 2011, the camp is now home to more than 8,000 displaced people from 81 villages – including Namlon, Namsanyang, Lwemauk and Dawhpumyang villages – after fighting broke out between the KIA and the Burmese Army.

After three years of fighting, an estimated 120,000 people from Kachin State have been forced out of their homes and into IDP camps.

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