Refugees

Following intense media speculation, Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, released a media statement on Thursday 17 July in an attempt to cool speculation that the refugee camps on the Thai Burma border were about to be closed and residents sent back to Burma. The MFA’s press release highlighted four main points and underlined that a recent meeting between Thailand and…

Thailand’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), has reached an agreement with the commander-in-chief of Burma’s military to repatriate the 120,000 refugees on the Thai Burma border. The agreement has alarmed human rights experts and has increased refugees concerns, with uncertainty as to exactly when and where the refugees will go and how their safety can be guaranteed. Head…

Starting in July Thai authorities are to start recording the refugee population in an attempt to verifying the number of refugees living in camps on the Thai-Burma border in Tak province. Saw George, vice chairperson of the Karen Refugee Committee, confirmed to Karen News about the process. “We’ve learned that the verification process will start on 8th July. Since this…

Mu Mu, 28, stirs thin soup inside her small, two-roomed bamboo house on the Thai-Burma border, and speaks of the day the Burma Army soldiers came to her village a more than a decade ago. “The soldiers used us as [forced] porters. They would come to our village, Mae Ta Waw, and arrest men and women. They kept coming back…

In an exclusive interview with Karen News, the Secretary of the Karen Women’s Organisation, which represents women refugees, has slammed cuts in aid to refugees, joining a growing host of human rights advocacy groups and community based organisations condemning the funding cuts by international donors. “Our refugee community feels it is under pressure to return to Burma. If there is…

A host of international based Burma human rights advocacy organisations have voiced grave concern that refugees on the Thai-Burma border are being forced to return to Burma prematurely because of deep cuts in international aid. In a joint statement the European Burma Network expressed concern that refugees from Burma residing in Thailand, were being “pressured” to return to Burma prematurely…

During this year’s Songkran (water festival) celebrations Thailand again witnessed carnage on the road. Road deaths and injuries caused by a deadly combination of driving while under the influence of alcohol pushed the number of people killed to by Wednesday 15 April to 248 and injuries to 2643. The New Year celebrations saw people killed on the roads in both…

Chin refugees in India fleeing persecution in Burma are left to fend for themselves as the UNHCR and local organisations tasked with protecting them fall prey to a “culture of denial and victim-blaming,” says the Chin Human Rights Organisation. The Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), a non-governmental human rights watchdog founded in 1995, has warned that hundreds of Chin refugee…

Last night’s fire at Mae La Refugee Camp destroyed 19 houses and another 31 were dismantled to stop the flames spreading. Thai ambulances and fire trucks from surrounding villages attended the fire at the Mae La Refugee Camp that is located on the Thai Burma Border in Thailand’s Tak Province. Saw Honest, the Mae La camp leader spoke to Karen…

Tonight at around 9.30pm a fire broke out in Zone B Section 4 and 5 at Mae La Refugee Camp on the Thai Burma Border in Thailand’s Tak Province. A Karen News reporter, at the camp spoke to a camp resident, Saw Hla Win, who was close to the fire when it broke out. “We were asleep. Most people were…