Myanmar junta battles guerillas for control of jade hub
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YANGON: Myanmar's junta and anti-coup guerillas battled over the country's jade mining hub Friday, a combatant and a local said, displacing desperate civilians as they vied for supplies of the precious stone.
Myanmar has been consumed by a many-sided civil war since a 2021 coup toppled the democratic government, with the myriad of fighting factions plundering the nation's vast natural resources to fill their coffers.
Jade is considered auspicious in Chinese culture and high-quality stones can fetch astronomical sums in the neighbouring country.
Fighting has raged during a Myanmar military offensive around villages and mining sites in Hpakant township of northern Kachin state, according to Naw Bu, spokesman of the Kachin Independence Army battling the junta in the area.
"They came to the jade mining areas of some companies and they burned down trucks and destroyed other things," he added. "They intended to stop our income from jade mining."
AFP was not able to verify the claim and a spokesman for Myanmar's junta could not be reached for comment.
Battles in the area began around three weeks ago but continued in the early hours of Friday, Naw Bu said.
A local resident who asked to remain anonymous said around 15 civilians had been killed since May 28 and "some residents didn't dare to stay in the combat zone and have been displaced".
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As Myanmar's civil war enters its fifth year, more than 3.5 million people in the Southeast Asian country of around 50 million are currently displaced, according to United Nations figures.
Kachin state hosts the largest jade deposits in the world according to geologists.
Myanmar also has a huge and loosely-regulated mining sector for gold, rubies and rare earth minerals which has flourished in the war.
China is also a key market for rare earth minerals, where they are used in electric vehicles the country is producing at prodigious rates.
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