A Shan State court on Friday sentenced two Kachin pastors to harsh multi-year prison sentences after they were caught up in conflict in Muse Township, with the two men found guilty of all charges brought against them, including “unlawful association.”

In this DVB Business Debate, our panelists consider the Kachin conflict’s implications for business, in a region rich in natural resources and bordering the economic powerhouse China to the north.

International aid groups in Burma have urged the government to allow free access to Arakan State, where an army offensive has sent 480,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh but hundreds of thousands remain cut off from food, shelter and medical care.

DVB’s Youth Voice team visits camps for the internally displaced in Kachin State to speak to young people about the particular challenges they have faced as the war raging in northern Burma entered its seventh year.

Burma said on Friday a visiting US official would not be allowed to go to a region where violence has triggered an exodus of nearly 400,000 Rohingya Muslims that the United Nations has branded a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

Follow DVB as we visit Kachin State some six years into the conflict there, which has displaced more than 100,000 civilians.