“I see comrades with vests, gas masks, helmets and protective eyeglasses, armed with makeshift weapons. “The situation is evolving into an all-out civil war,” said one Mandalay-based protester, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals by the military. Leaders of the resistance to last month’s military coup that toppled Myanmar‘s elected government are calling for the Karen and other ethnic groups to band together and join them as allies in a “federal army”, which would add an armed element to their struggle. More than 100 people, including several children, were killed in cities across the country at the weekend. The government has battled Karen fighters on and off for years as it has with other minority ethnic groups seeking more autonomy, but the airstrikes are a worrying development at a time when the junta is violently suppressing anti-coup protests. She said at least three people were killed in Saturday’s strikes, including one girl aged seven or eight, and eight were badly injured. “There were big explosions, and many houses and buildings burned down,” said Naw Wah Khu Shee, the director of Karen Peace Support Network.

Since then an estimated 3,000 villagers have fled across the Salween River into Thailand and an unknown number have become internally displaced in the jungles on the Myanmar side of the river. The strikes in areas populated predominantly by ethnic Karen people began on Saturday. A series of airstrikes by Myanmar’s military has driven thousands of people across the country’s border with Thailand, adding a new dimension to an already volatile and deadly crisis.

People in myanmar