Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday that it had recaptured a town on a trade highway to China from an ethnic armed group in the country’s war-wracked north.
Following a 16-day operation, “Tatmadaw reoccupied Hsipaw completely” on Thursday, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, referring to the military by its Burmese name.
Northern Shan state has been rocked by fighting since June 2024 when an alliance of ethnic armed groups renewed an offensive against the military along the highway to China’s Yunnan province.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) captured the last remaining military base in the town of Hsipaw in October that year after weeks of fighting.
Hsipaw is normally home to around 20,000 people and sits on a highway from Myanmar’s second city Mandalay to the China border, along which hundreds of millions of US dollars’ worth of trade travels annually.
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