Myanmar's government Thursday held a somber ceremony marking the nation's symbolic unification after the colonial era, but a coveted ceasefire with ethnic rebel groups remained out of reach as conflict sweeps across northern borderlands.

The quasi-civilian regime says peace in the ethnically diverse but conflict-prone nation is pivotal to the success of reforms and Myanmar's development.

Dozens of protesters marched in Yangon Wednesday against a law giving voting rights to Myanmar's temporary citizens, including hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya, as parliament's speaker referred the fiery issue to a constitutional tribunal.

Controversy over people holding limited citizenship rights in Myanmar's complex national identification system spilled onto the streets after a bill granting them the right to vote in referendums was enacted on Tuesday.

Clashes have flared between Myanmar's army and rebels in an ethnic Chinese northern border area, state media said Tuesday, as multiple conflicts in minority regions overshadow efforts to agree a countrywide ceasefire.

Resurgence of conflict in the Kokang area of Shan state, which had been largely dormant for nearly six years, saw rebel troops attack Myanmar military positions in the area on Monday.

Rebels in Myanmar's war-torn northeastern border areas Thursday accused the nation's army of launching air attacks, the latest escalation of fighting that has claimed an estimated 20 lives this week.

A spokesman for the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of two major groups still locked in conflict with Myanmar's military, said two helicopter gunships attacked its troops in northern Shan state on Tuesday.

A set of gates that became an enduring symbol of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi's years under house arrest are to be auctioned, a businessman who now owns them said Saturday.

The gates -- painted in the yellow and red colors of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party -- were once located at the entrance to the crumbling Yangon mansion where Myanmar's most famous political prisoner was confined for much of the 1990s and 2000s because of her outspoken opposition to military rule.

Myanmar police briefly blocked the path of a major student protest march in a remote central region Tuesday as the government said it wanted to prevent "instability".

The procession of some 300 people -- comprised of students, monks and other activists -- was eventually allowed to proceed after a tense stand-off with police trying to halt the unauthorized cross-country march calling for education reforms.

Myanmar's military freed more than 400 child soldiers last year, the United Nations has confirmed, a record number since the "tatmadaw" army signed a 2012 pact with the UN on the issue.

There are no verifiable figures on how many children are currently serving in Myanmar's huge military, which has faced a slew of accusations over rights abuses, including the forced recruitment of children to work as porters or even human mine detectors.

Thousands of mourners gathered Friday for the funerals of two young teachers who activists allege were murdered by soldiers in northern Myanmar, as the government promised an inquiry into their deaths.

Tearful well wishers packed into a hall in Myitkyina, the state capital of war-torn northern Kachin state, to pay respects to the pair, whose deaths have sparked an outpouring of public anger and grief.

The U.S. has urged Myanmar to investigate the deaths of two teachers who activists claim were raped and murdered by government troops, as crowds gathered in the country's far north Thursday to express rising anger over the killings.

The battered bodies of the two women, aged 20 and 21, were found Monday in a remote village in Shan state where they were teaching children on behalf of the Kachin Baptist Convention, according to KBC spokesman Lama Yaw.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced Wednesday it had resumed work in parts of Myanmar's Rakhine state, nine months after its ejection from the conflict-racked region sparked a health crisis.

MSF was ordered to stop work in Rakhine early last year after it became the target of protests by Buddhist nationalists, who accused it of giving preferential treatment to stateless Rohingya Muslims.