Twelve members of the KBC aid team traveling by car from Kachin state capital Myitkyina towards Hpakant were turned back at the Sang Hka checkpoint, near Lawng Hkang (Lone Khin), on Feb.1, according to KBC General Secretary Rev. Dr. Hkalam Sam Sun.

The team had been dispatched by KBC to visit IDPs in Seng Ra; a village located north of Hpakant town. “It seems like they blocked our team because they were KBC pastors (in the car),” Hkalam Sam Sun told the Kachin News Group.

“The villagers in Seng Ra are trapped in their village. They've not allowed to leave. If there is more fighting, there will be in danger. That’s why we’re concerned and sent a group.”

Fighting between Burma troops and the Kachin Independence Army’s (KIA) Battalion- 6 has displaced more than 2,000 from several villages in the Seng Ra area. Most of the residents fled to church run camps in Hpakant, but at least 400 people are trapped in Seng Ra.  The government soldiers who have occupied their village aren’t letting them leave.  The KIA’s Battalion- 6 headquarters, which was nearby, was overrun on Jan. 31. The Burma army has also taken control of several other villages in the surrounding areas.

KBC, the largest Kachin church association in the country, has distributed aid to IDPs in at least 21 places, both in government and KIA-controlled territories.

On Jan. 30, KBC released a statement warning the government that “no peace can be made by force. To achieve genuine and lasting justice and peace, precise policies and procedures must be set for political dialogues”. The statement also demanded for government forces to allow humanitarian assistance from UN and international organizations to IDPs in all areas of the state, and to “stop arbitrary arrests of innocent civilians, stop firing indiscriminately on refugee camps, stop harassing and raping women and respect international human rights laws”.