Refugees trickle across Indian border from Myanmar turmoil: ‘Repression must stop in Myanmar’

United Nations: The UN special envoy on Myanmar on Friday demanded an end to the military’s "repression" of protesters, imploring the Security Council to act on the "desperate pleas" from the country.

"Your unity is needed more than ever on Myanmar," special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener told a session on the crisis. "The repression must stop." She said that she is receiving some 2,000 messages a day from Myanmar urging international action.

"The hope they have placed in the United Nations and its membership is waning and I have heard directly the desperate pleas -- from mothers, students and the elderly," she said. "Allow me to reiterate: the international community should not lend legitimacy or recognition to this -- a regime that has been forcefully imposed."

But she stopped short of urging international sanctions on the military junta, which overthrew civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1 and has killed more than 50 people as it tries to crush persistent protests.

The army has historically counted on support from veto-wielding Security Council member China, which has voiced misgivings about the coup but not joined Western nations in sanctions.

Diplomats said that no statement was expected to come out of Friday’s session initiated by Britain but that Security Council members would pursue work on a text. Burgener called for world powers to be "robust and timely" in pushing for the restoration of democracy.

"We must denounce the actions by the military, which continues to severely undermine the principles of this organization and ignores our clear signals to uphold them," she said.Meanwhile, a number of people have begun escaping the turmoil in Myanmar into India, some of them policemen refusing to take part in the violent crackdown on protests against a military coup there, officials and reports said.

Myanmar’s junta ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, triggering a mass uprising that the military has responded to with increasingly lethal force. The UN said at least 38 people were killed on Wednesday.

Indian police said nine people crossed the 1,600-kilometre (1,000-mile) border into Mizoram state on the same day, three of them police refusing to take part in putting down protests. India’s foreign ministry told reporters on Friday that it was "ascertaining facts".

The Hindu daily said at least 20 people have crossed over since Wednesday, and quoted locals as saying there were at least 50 in the districts of Champhai and Serchhip. "Their identities and reasons for fleeing Myanmar have been forwarded to the State’s Home Department," Serchhip’s deputy commissioner Kumar Abhishek said.

The Hindustan Times quoted officials in Mizoram saying that locals have been told to report immediately any further Myanmar nationals crossing the frontier. Champai deputy commissioner Maria CT Zuali told the paper that "those persons have to be caught and the local authorities alerted."

"We will try and find out if at all the lives of those entering India are threatened in Myanmar. We can decide on these people based on what the (central government) says," Zuali said. "If permission is not granted to take them in as refugees, they would be deported."

Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga said earlier that the state would welcome people fleeing the Myanmar military "with open arms, give them food and shelter". "We would even approach the central government to grant us permission in the event of a refugees influx," he said.