Myanmar government and Karen rebels agree ceasefire

Decades of fighting have ended after the government in Myanmar signed a ceasefire with ethnic rebel group the Karen National Unit.

The administration’s peace committee met with the group’s leaders on Thursday in the capital of Karen state, Hpa-an.

Karen state is the area of Myanmar’s oldest insurgency in a country where various ethnic groups have been at odds since independence in 1948. The violence has forced tens of thousands of people living in the region to flee to refugee camps across the border in Thailand.

Myanmar’s military-dominated government is attempting to reach out to ethnic rebel groups as part of reforming the country’s isolated image and getting the European Union and United States to lift economic sanctions.

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