In a fresh disruption to the peace process of the Government, massive incursion by armed ethnic groups broke out on November 20 on the outskirts of Muse, a border city in northeastern Myanmar. The clashes marked another blow to the efforts of national reconciliation and union peace building by Aung San Suu Kyi, who brokered recently-finished the second edition of Union Peace Conference dubbed as the 21st Century Pinlon Conference. The rebel attacks initially claimed eight people including three civilians in the early morning of November 20. The casualty numbers amounted to ten in subsequent days when the Myanmar Army responded the assault. The insurgency was a joint action of four armed ethnic groups – the KIA (Kachin Independence Army), the TNLA (Ta’ang National Liberation Army), the MNDAA (Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army) and the AA (Arakenese Army). All of those are the insurgent groups that have not signed the National Ceasefire Agreement, a deal between the Army and armed ethnic groups to suspend fighting.
Media reports revealed that at least 3,000 people fled into China adjacent to Muse, which lies in a frontier region long troubled by minority insurgencies.
