China has protested to Myanmar after five people were injured by artillery shells lobbed during battles between its ruling junta and rebel groups that strayed into a small town near their border, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. <\/p>\n
Armed conflict has surged in Myanmar\u2019s north between the military and rebel groups since late October, spurring calls for a ceasefire from neighboring China, which has also facilitated dialogue between the two sides. <\/p>\n
\u201cChina \u2026 strongly deplores the Chinese casualties caused by the conflict and has already lodged serious representations with the relevant parties,\u201d said Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson. <\/p>\n
\u201cChina once again asks all parties to the conflict to cease fire and stop fighting, and take measures to prevent the recurrence of such vicious incidents,\u201d Wang told a regular news briefing. <\/p>\n
China would take the necessary steps to safeguard the lives and property of its citizens, he added. <\/p>\n
Earlier, the state-run Global Times newspaper said five people in Nansan, a subtropical town near Myanmar, were taken to hospital after being wounded on Wednesday by the stray shells. <\/p>\n
A video of the incident circulated on social media by the paper showed one person lying on a pavement as people shouted, \u201cCall the police!\u201d <\/p>\n
In the video, the paper added that officials in Zhenkang, a city in the southwestern province of Yunnan, had confirmed shelling had strayed from Laukkai, in Myanmar\u2019s northern region of Kokang, at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The incident comes after China\u2019s embassy in Myanmar urged its nationals last week to leave Laukkai as soon as possible, citing growing security risks. <\/p>\n
For years, Kokang in Myanmar\u2019s Shan state has been a volatile and restive region. <\/p>\n
In 2015, shells from the area also landed across the border in Yunnan amid fighting between Myanmar government troops and rebels, injuring one Chinese and four Myanmar nationals and angering Beijing. <\/p>\n
Some battles took place as close as 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the China-Myanmar border at the time. <\/p>\n
In 2009, clashes in the same area forced tens of thousands to flee across the border into China, Chinese state media and rights groups have said. <\/p>\n
In mid-December, the United Nations estimated more than 660,000 people had been displaced in Myanmar since October 27, and put the corresponding nationwide total at a record 2.6 million. <\/p>\n
China has urged citizens to avoid travel to northern Myanmar, and advised those already there to seek safety or return home. <\/p>\n\n
China has protested to Myanmar after five people were injured by artillery shells lobbed during battles between its ruling junta and rebel groups that strayed into a small town near their border, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. Armed conflict has surged in Myanmar\u2019s north between the military and rebel groups since late October, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}