66,000 people displaced by army abuses in Burma

(10-22 14:23) Up to 66,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes in eastern Burma in the past year because of systematic abuses by the country's ruling military, an aid group said. Burma Border Consortium or TBBC, which provides aid to hundreds of thousands of refugees who flee Burma, said in a new report that the junta's actions could constitute crimes against humanity. "The extent of persecution and suffering in the border areas has been largely unseen and under-reported for decades,'' said Jack Dunford, TBBC's executive director. "Yet the same brutal army that crushed protests on city streets last September marauds with impunity in rural Burma, bringing fear and disrupting the lives of villagers on a day to day basis.'' AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE