"CHIANG MAI, Thailand—Five civilians including three children were killed when mortar shells struck their homes in Kutkai Township’s Mawhit village in Shan State on Saturday. The fighting erupted in Kutkai between the Myanmar military and the Brotherhood Alliance of three ethnic armed groups while the groups’ leaders were holding peace talks with the government in Keng Tung, eastern Shan State, on Saturday. An 18-year-old woman and her 5-month-old daughter; and a 34-year-old woman and her son, 9, and daughter, 14, from Mawhit village, Kutkai Township in northern Shan State were killed by mortar shells and their homes were destroyed, according to Kutkai residents. “Three of them died immediately from the shelling and two others died after arriving at a hospital in Kutkai,” said Daw Lum Nyoi, a Kutkai resident. Three others were injured, of whom two were taken to Lashio Hospital. “The sound of gunfire was heard since 7 a.m. in Kutkai Town, starting when we were about to take the children to school,” said Mai Mai, a Kutkai resident who is also a relief worker..."