A Myanmar army officer who defected and fled the country has detailed battlefield losses to rebels in the southern part of Chin state, with at least 50 soldiers killed and 200 badly wounded in 2021 by opposition fighters with homemade weapons.

Kaung Thu Win, a captain who defected in December, offered a rare first-hand account of intensified fighting in Chin, in Myanmar's northwest, where the military junta has faced some of the fiercest armed resistance since it seized power a year ago.

He said he switched sides after hearing reports by colleagues of military abuses during clashes last year.

Speaking in northeastern India where...