YANGON, Myanmar, May 8, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The number of displaced people in 
Myanmar has reached three million, the United Nations said, the vast majority 
forced to flee their homes by conflict unleashed by the military's 2021 coup.

Around 2.7 million have fled since the putsch that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi's 
government after a short-lived experiment with democracy. 

The coup sparked renewed clashes with established ethnic armed groups and 
birthed dozens of new "People's Defence Forces" that the military has failed 
to crush. 

"Myanmar stands at the precipice in 2024 with a deepening humanitarian 
crisis," the UN's resident coordinator in the country said in a statement 
released on Monday.

An estimated one-third of those displaced are children, according to the 
statement.

Around half of the three million have been displaced since late last year, 
when an alliance of ethnic armed groups launched an offensive across northern 
Shan state, the statement said.

The offensive seized swathes of territory and lucrative trade crossings on 
the China border, posing the biggest threat to the junta since it seized 
power.

Myanmar's borderlands are home to a plethora of ethnic armed groups, many of 
whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over 
autonomy and control of lucrative resources.

The UN said a severe funding shortfall was hampering its relief efforts, 
particularly ahead of the May-June cyclone season.

Last year cyclone Mocha smashed into western Myanmar's Rakhine state, killing 
at least 148 people.

More than 355,000 people are currently displaced in western Rakhine state, 
which has been rocked since November by clashes between the Arakan Army (AA) 
and the military, the UN said.