All events · The Long Emergencies
Myanmar's Kachin Offensive and Displacement after the 2011 Ceasefire Collapse
2011–2021 · East & Southeast Asia
Displacement
Sexual Violence
Displaced
100,000
Human Rights Watch counted about 75,000 displaced by March 2012, most in some 30 camps along the China border in KIA-held areas, with 7,000-10,000 more who had fled into China's Yunnan province. The UN Fact-Finding Mission reported in September 2018 that an estimated 100,000 people in Kachin and Shan had been living in camps or camp-like situations since 2011, and Radio Free Asia, citing OCHA, reported more than 105,000 in 170 camps in Kachin and northern Shan in June 2020. Figures count people in registered camps at a point in time; repeated short-term displacements are not included.
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What happened
On 9 June 2011 the Myanmar army launched a major offensive against the Kachin Independence Army, ending a 17-year ceasefire. Human Rights Watch documented in March 2012 that soldiers attacked and shelled villages, razed and pillaged homes, tortured and raped civilians, used villagers including children as porters and forced labourers, laid landmines and killed civilians, while the KIA used child soldiers and landmines. About 75,000 people had fled by early 2012, most to camps along the Chinese border in KIA-controlled territory; China forcibly returned at least 1,000 of the 7,000-10,000 Kachin who had sought refuge in Yunnan in August 2012, according to Human Rights Watch, which China denied. Fighting spread to northern Shan State, and in 2018 the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar found a pattern of systematic attacks on civilians and concluded that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed in Kachin and Shan States, principally by the Tatmadaw. About 100,000 people remained in protracted displacement by 2018-2020. This entry ends with the February 2021 coup; new displacement in Kachin since then is covered by the atlas entry on Myanmar's post-coup civil war, and earlier forced relocations by the entry on the Four Cuts strategy.
Parties
The Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) attacked Kachin Independence Army areas and Kachin villages in Kachin and northern Shan States, driving civilians into camps along the China border
Disputed
Myanmar's government and military described operations as counter-insurgency against the KIA and rejected the Fact-Finding Mission's findings; China denied that the 2012 returns from Yunnan were forced.
On the death toll
No systematic count of deaths in the Kachin conflict since 2011 exists. Human Rights Watch documented individual extrajudicial killings, and Radio Free Asia reported in 2020 that the clashes had killed 'hundreds', but neither gives a total, and combatant losses on both sides were not disclosed.
Documented forms of violence
Summary ExecutionTortureSexual ViolenceForced LabourDestruction of PropertyArbitrary DetentionEnforced DisappearanceCultural Destruction
Human Rights Watch (2012) documented extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, forced portering and the razing of homes, and the UN Fact-Finding Mission (2018) documented arbitrary detention amounting to enforced disappearance and the destruction of churches in Kachin and northern Shan.
Formal findings
- UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (2018) — Found that crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, rape and sexual slavery, persecution and enslavement, and war crimes including attacking and displacing civilians and pillage had been committed in Kachin and Shan States since 2011, principally by the Tatmadaw — source
Movements mapped
- Villages of Kachin State → camps around Laiza on the China border
- Kachin State → Yunnan, China (forcibly returned in part in August 2012)10,000
Countries touched, on present-day borders
Myanmar, China
Related entries
- Continued as: Myanmar Civil War Displacement Since the 2021 Coup
After the fix, the post-coup figure excludes the 68,400 pre-coup Kachin and 7,600 northern Shan IDPs, so the figures no longer overlap. Kachin displacement continues in the post-coup entry (181,400 displaced in Kachin since the coup).
Sources