A report by KWAT entitled “Burma’s Covered Up War: Atrocities Against the Kachin People”, released on Oct. 7, stated the Burma Army broke a 17 year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and has committed killings, torture and sexual violence, displacing over 25,000 people.

The report said 37 women and girls were raped and 13 were killed during the first two months of the conflict in Kachin State.

KWAT spokesperson, Shirley Seng, said, “Some women were gang-raped in front of their families. In one case, soldiers slaughtered a woman’s grandchild in front of her before raping and killing her also.”

In September, the government began its offensive against KIA positions, deploying over 1,000 troops from nine battalions in northern Shan State, to seize Kachin strongholds and committed rape and sexual violence against local women.

On September 24, Burma Army soldiers committed three separate rapes involving two girls, aged 14 and 17, and one woman, aged 40, in Muse and Kutkai townships, according to KWAT documents.

During the press release in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Shirley Seng said there are over 25,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) on the Kachin State-China border facing shortages of food and medicine.

The regime has blocked agencies working officially inside Burma from assisting them,” she said.

However, she said her appeals to foreign governments to address this humanitarian crisis have so far fallen on deaf ears.

KWAT urged the international community to abandon its “wait and see” policy with Burma and bring increased pressure on the government to end its military offensive and atrocities, and also provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to the Kachin IDPs.

“The failed policy allowed the government to start the new war against the Kachin people as well as it lets it carry on attacking women and children. ‘Wait and See’ is a death sentence for us,” Shirley Seng said.