The Catholic missionary news service Fides said Thursday that Burma is carrying out ethnic cleansing against the mainly Christian Kachin ethnic minority near the border with China.

Citing a local Catholic priest, Fides said in a news release that fighting had forced 20,000 people so far to leave their homes and the number is increasing by the day.

The priest was quoted as telling the Rome-based agency that priests and nuns in the area are doing everything to help Kachin refugees. The priest says they are almost all Christians and describes them as victims of brutal repression carried out by the Burmese military.

The priest also said there was a risk of a humanitarian emergency in the area for refugees out in the open as the rainy season approaches.