Myanmar extends earthquake truce as rebels prepare to hand key city back to junta

Myanmar extends earthquake truce as rebels prepare to hand key city back to junta
by AFP Staff Writers
Yangon (AFP) April 22, 2025

Myanmar's junta on Tuesday prolonged a ceasefire declared after last month's devastating earthquake to April 30, after aid groups and international mediators called for an extension to ease relief efforts.

The junta -- which seized power in a 2021 coup sparking a many-sided civil war -- said it would cease attacking its myriad armed opponents following the magnitude-7.7 quake which has killed more than 3,700.

Conflict monitors and residents in combat zones say fighting continued on both sides during the 20-day truce, declared to spur aid delivery in Myanmar's central belt and which was due to expire at midnight (1730 GMT).

The ceasefire was extended to April 30 "aiming to continue the rebuilding and rehabilitation process with momentum", the junta information team said in a statement.

But the military said it would not hesitate to retaliate if other armed groups launched attacks -- as it said when it announced the ceasefire.

The March 28 earthquake has left more than 60,000 people living in tent encampments and pushed two million people into "critical need of assistance and protection", according to the UN.

Despite continued fighting, humanitarian groups and regional powers have called for the pause on hostilities to be prolonged as aid efforts continue into their fourth week.

On Thursday, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing flew to Bangkok to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for rare backroom talks with the chair of the 10-country ASEAN bloc.

Anwar, whose country currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said he had also spoken to Myanmar's opposition "National Unity Government" which promised a similar truce after the tremor.

Both sides agreed "they would do whatever is necessary to avoid any extension of the fighting", Anwar told reporters after the meeting.

Myanmar rebels prepare to hand key city back to junta, China says
Yangon (AFP) April 22, 2025 - A Myanmar ethnic minority armed group is preparing to hand a captured city back to the military in a Beijing-brokered deal, China's foreign ministry said Tuesday, as residents reported junta troops already returning.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) ousted Myanmar's military from the city of Lashio in August 2024, capturing their northeastern command and a key trade route to China.

Analysts say it was the worst strategic loss the military suffered since seizing power in a 2021 coup that sparked a civil war pitting the generals against anti-coup fighters and long-active ethnic armed groups.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters the MNDAA is set to relinquish the city to the military without firing a shot.

"At the joint invitation of both sides, China recently dispatched a ceasefire monitoring team to Lashio, Myanmar, to oversee the ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the MNDAA and to witness the smooth and orderly handover of Lashio's urban area," he said.

China is a major ally and arms supplier of the junta but also maintains ties with ethnic rebel groups that hold territory near its border like the MNDAA, which can muster around 8,000 fighters.

Monitors have said the fall of Lashio -- around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Chinese territory -- was a step too far for Beijing, which balked at the prospect of instability on its borders.

- Military movements in Lashio -

The MNDAA has not commented on the handover and a spokesman for Myanmar's military could not be reached by AFP for comment.

But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: "Some military officers have been transferred to Lashio in recent days. Some are on their way to Lashio already."

One Lashio resident this week told AFP they had been turned away by an MNDAA checkpoint outside a hotel, after being told members of the group were meeting Myanmar military officials inside.

And a spokesman for the Lashio office of another ethnic armed organisation, allied with the MNDAA, told AFP they were "seeing military vehicles in town".

In late 2023, the MNDAA and two other ethnic rebel groups began a combined offensive which seized swathes of Myanmar's northern Shan state, including lucrative ruby mines and trade links.

Beijing has long been eyeing the territory for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

After Lashio's fall China cut power, water and internet to the MNDAA's homeland region of Kokang, a source close to the group told AFP.

In December it said it would cease fire and was ready for China-mediated "peace talks with the Myanmar army on issues such as Lashio".