Exclusive: Myanmar Red Cross, junta officials had notice of Chinese relief team’s presence in Myanmar before aid convoy attack

A letter obtained exclusively by Myanmar Now reveals that the Red Cross Society of China gave advance notice of its plans to deliver aid in Myanmar, but had not received junta officials’ clearance before soldiers attacked their relief convoy in northern Shan State. 

The document, dated April 1, was a letter from Thwin Htet Lin, the junta’s consul general serving in Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province. It was addressed to a junta deputy minister of foreign affairs in Naypyitaw, with copies sent to disaster management teams in Naypyitaw and Mandalay as well as to the Myanmar embassy in Beijing.