The Kachin Independence Army’s objective in recent attacks launched by the ethnic armed group against government troops was limited to attempting to “disrupt” the military, not to “overrun” the bases it has targeted, according to a KIA spokesperson.

With thousands of miners and their families in recent days having fled gold and amber mines in villages across Tanai Township to Tanai town, in northern Kachin State, the military has told leaders at the camps for the internally displaced that the temporary settlements should be moved elsewhere.

The demonstrators chanted slogans, mostly focused on the creation of a Tai Leng state and a federal union in Burma.

“Local residents informed us that stray artillery shells, apparently fired from a position in the cemetery outside of Namya, landed in the school compound, wounding the teacher.”

A KIA spokesman says the Kachin militia engaged Burmese troops along the road between Kamaing and Hpakant on Monday morning after government forces had advanced on a position where the KIA's 6th Battalion had dug in.

One person was killed and another injured when a landmine exploded near a village in Kachin State.