Fear stalks land with abundance of natural resources

A phone salesman, who asked to remain anonymous, said he hadn't sold a single handset for two weeks. Before the hostilities started, he averaged one sale a day.

The only beneficiaries have been the hotels that provide accommodation for the police who are keeping order in Nabang.

A Kachin soldier in Laiza, the headquarters of the rebel Kachin Independence Army. Residents in the city have built bomb shelters.[PHOTOS BY CUI MENG / CHINA DAILY]

No explosions were heard in Nabang on Tuesday, after Myanmar's President U Thein Sein ordered the military to stop attacking the KIA from Saturday.

However, the thousands of refugees produced by the constant fighting are suffering as the fear of being killed vies with an unswerving determination not to surrender.

Nabang is the largest point of entry from Kachin in Yingjiang. It sits on the bank of the 6-meter-wide Laiza River, which acts as the border between the two countries, facing Laiza city. Locals said the red banners reading "Happy New Year, 2013" seem inappropriate to the people of Kachin, who live in constant fear and are driven by concerns about safety and the future.

Most of the Chinese merchants in Kachin have left their investments behind and retreated back home. In Laiza, all males aged 13 and older have been mobilized and have joined the KIA. Many rode motorcycles to the front, carrying guns and ammunition on their backs. On Friday morning, civilians and soldiers rushed to buy foodstuffs such as instant noodles before quickly "disappearing" for fear of being bombed. The city was like a ghost town after midday, only showing signs of life when the KIA troops showed up at night.

In the region surrounding Laiza, three refugee camps have been pressed into use to accommodate thousands of civilians. At a refugee camp in Laiza, most people live in 3-sq-m wooden sheds that are covered by a protective layer of iron plates. Exposed to direct sunlight, the sheds become unbearably hot and stuffy during the day. In one shed, a gray-haired woman got up when her son, a Kachin fighter, picked up the gun and helmet he'd left by her "bed", a bamboo mat on the floor, and headed off to the front line.