Karen News

In messages to mark Karen News Years Day and addressed to Karen both in Burma and across the world, leaders urged unity. “If we are united we will have victory. On this New Year, wherever we are, if we unite our voices from everywhere [all over the world], people will be frightened by the sound of our voices,” Ner Dah…

The Burma Army covered up evidence that members of its armed forces may have raped and murdered two young Kachin teachers last year, a report released by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) alleged. The report, entitled ‘Justice Delayed, Justice Denied,’ presented witness testimony that implicated Burma Army soldiers in the rape and murder of two women. The report described…

Lives in limbo for over four years, many hope the new government will prioritise peace in Kachin so they could go home MYITKYINA, Myanmar (Myanmar Now) – For more than six months in 2011, Ywe Ja refused to leave her home in Myanmar’s Kachin State despite heavy fighting around her village. It was where she was born, and she had…

Naw Tender runs a small clinic in a converted room in her house in Htaw Ywae village in Karen State and said 2015 was a hard year for dengue fever. “We have had 15 cases in December alone, it is still a big a problem, altogether we treated 653 cases this year. We had a eight-year-old girl die – she…

News that authorities in Karen State are planning to crack down on drivers using unlicensed vehicles is causing a great deal of worry among the state’s car owners. Most of the vehicles being driven in Karen State are unlicensed for travel interstate and there is an acknowledgement between drivers and authorities that this is allowed as along as these vehicles…

Karen people spread all over the world celebrated Karen New Year Day on January 10, 2016. Karen in Burma, on the border gathered at a wide variety of places to welcome the New Year. Celebration took place in Shwe Kokko, Rangoon and Hpa-an, where the former, President U Thein Sein attended. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League…

A major Burma ethnic political alliance claims that the government’s peace convention will fail. The alliance said in a statement that convention, part of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, is scheduled to start on January 12, is unlikely to lead to a genuine democratic federal union for the country. The United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), composed of eight ethnic political parties made…

Deprived of vital health services and ravaged by years of civil war, one devoted abbot is providing forgotten rural communities with much-needed relief By Phil Thornton The muscular arm of a saffron-clad monk, propped against the wall of a bamboo hut, draws air pictures to illustrate why his community is in desperate need of an ambulance. The arm belongs to…

Of three new union level committees set up after the ceasefire agreement was signed, only three out of 96 members are women. None are from the government. YANGON (Myanmar Now) – Women have been consistently excluded from Myanmar’s peace negotiations and their continued absence could undermine the success of the talks aimed at ending long-running ethnic conflicts that have displaced…

A teenage boy, 17 from Mae La camp committed suicide on December 22 at his house in Zone A-2, it was the second suicide case in a month. Saw Ah Kine, the section leader of Zone A confirmed to Karen News that the boy often complained of not wanting to live anymore. “The boy have been telling his grandma for…