We do requests donations from local businesses, but never using force or threats," the KIO responded.

The Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the Wa National Organisation (WNO) have withdrawn from the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), a formerly seven-member coalition of ethnic armed groups.

During a brief trip to conflict-wracked Kachin State on Tuesday, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi visited displacement camps and, in a lighter moment, posed for photos with a pair of nonagenarians who similarly smiled for the camera with Suu Kyi’s father more than a half-century ago.

Last month hundreds of internally displaced persons fled renewed conflict in Burma's north. For many, they traded one IDP camp for another.

Two Kachin pastors who went missing last month and were feared dead are alive and in Burmese Army custody, according to the Office of the Defence Services’ Commander-in-Chief.

Human rights organisations have called on the government to investigate the disappearance of two Kachin pastors in northern Shan State.