Myanmar fighting traps 2,000 Kachin people

BANGKOK, Apr 19 (AP): Community leaders from the Christian ethnic Kachin community have called for urgent medical attention for about 2,000 civilians, including pregnant women and the elderly, trapped in the jungle where they fled to escape clashes between the Myanmar's army and the Kachin guerillas in the country's north.

Rev Mung Dan, a Baptist community leader, said the civilians trapped without medicine or sufficient food include five pregnant women, two women who just gave birth, 93 people wounded by mortar shelling.

They are "in dire need of medical treatment as well as rations," he said by phone.