Refugees

Earlier this July, 157 refugees more from camps along the Thai-Burma border returned to Burma. This was the fourth group officially to voluntarily return facilitated by UNHCR and government officials from Burma and Thailand. As with previous returnees, the new group went to the Kyauk Lone Gyi reception center located in the Burma border town Myawaddy and welcomed by government…

On World Refugee Day, 2019, the Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN) issued a statement calling on the European Union, United Kingdom and other donors to support refugees and IDPs in eastern Burma and Thailand. With the peace building process stalled and without any guaranteed political solutions, it is impossible for the refugees and displaced people to return to their original…

This year’s World Refugee Day Today is marked with a global call for people to #StepWithRefugees. On the Thai-Burma border, refugees who recently returned to their homeland are concerned how to make a living and look after their families. Since 2016, and encouraged by recent political changes in Burma, 729 people from the nine refugee camps on the Thai Burma…

Long-time refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border face cuts in rations but say they cannot return to areas where fighting is ongoing. International aid for refugees and displaced people in camps on the Thai-Myanmar border has been slashed since Myanmar’s first supposedly democratic government was elected four years ago. The assumption underpinning this cut in funding was that conditions are, or…

A third batch of refugees from camps along the Thai-Burma border who wishes to voluntarily want to return to Burma are being processed by officials from the UN refugee agency and Burma and Thailand. In Mae La camp, the largest camp on the Thai Burma border, fewer people showed up at the processing center. Officials from the Royal Thai Government…

A flash flood and landslide ripped through the Mae La Oon Karen refugee camp on the northern Thai border early Sunday morning. The sudden flooding killed one refugee, injured 11 and left 7 missing. The Mae La Oon refugee camp is located in the mountains surrounding Mae Sariang district, Mae Hong Son Province northern Thailand. Camp officials told Karen News…

The Karen Community of Canada (KCC) will conduct international campaigns to resume aids to the refugees in Thai-Burma border and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The KCC’s chair Slone Phan told Karen News on September 4 that the decision was made by delegates from respective cities who attended the KCC’s annual meeting in Edmonton of Alberita province in Canada on September…

The Karen Refugee Committee claim huge cuts to funding for administration of the Thai-Burma border refugee camps makes it impossible for more than 1,000 camp workers to do their jobs effectively. The KRC, who manage the camps and coordinate service delivery to the Karen refugee camps said in their July report that its administration work would be hard-hit by the…

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it has never encouraged the refugees living at the Thai-Myanmar border to return home and it has only provided necessary assistance. The UNHCR (Hpa-an office) head Ms. Maureen McBrien said this during the World Refugees Day ceremony on June 20. “The UNHCR can only work in Myanmar under an invitation from…

The Thai government has transferred 93 Myanmar refugees from five refugee camps to Burma government on May 7 under the bilateral agreement on the voluntary repatriation of the refugees from Thailand. The refugees living in Mae La, Umpiem, Nu Po, Ban Don Yang, and Mai Nai Soi refugee camps have returned under the arrangement of the Thai Ministry of Interior,…