Repatriation

The Mae Fah Luang Foundation has begun conducting surveys at Mae Ra Moe [Mae Rama Luang] and Mae La Oon refugee camps in Mae Hong Song province to gauge resident opinions on where they hope to live in the future. More than 70 MFLF-trained refugees started gathering data on February 3 as part of a month-long project to assess how…

A survey conducted by the Karen Refugees Committee at the Tham Hin camp Southern Thailand found that 46 percent of those Karen refugees who were surveyed want to resettle to a third country, another 27% would prefer to remain in Thailand and 27% would only go back to Burma is peace is guaranteed. The KRC surveyed 6,195 refugees in the…

The Australia Karen Organization commemorated World Refugee Day by calling for the international community to give more support to Karen people living in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. Under its banner, ‘Restoring Hope’, the Australia Karen Organization (AKO) and as many as 250 people gathered in Villawood, Sydney on June 22. The celebration was attended by over 250 participants…

Naw Day Wah Htoo lives in Mae Ra Ma Luang refugee camp on the Thai Burma border and talks to Karen News about her life living on the margins. Karen News reports. “Living in a refugee camp we are not allowed to go outside to find work. When I hear talk about refugee repatriation, I have doubts about it as…

Mr. Yuki Nishimori, a consultant with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that is working on assessing the potential for development projects for the Japanese government in Mon and Karen State, met with officials from the Karen National Unions’s liaison office in Myawaddy to discuss opening an information center on issues related to refugee and internally displaced people. The meeting…

Following complaints about a refugee profiling survey been carried out by the Mae Fah Luang Foundation (MFLF) in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Mae La refugee camp, officials met to discus the issues of complaint and agreed to continue its surveying. Saw George, vice chairperson of the Karen Refugees Committee (KRC), said that…

Following three days of discussion representatives from organizations working on refugee issues along the Thai-Burma border, refugee representatives, civil society groups, political leaders agreed that the current situation in Burma is not safe for refugees to return. Over 40 representatives including the United Nation High Commission on Refugee, Refugee Camps Committees, The Border Consortium, Karen National Union, Thai official from…

For the first time since 1974 the Burma government has met with the Karen Refugee Committee in Hpa-an Town. The government put forward its plan to KRC that they wanted to ‘trial a pilot project’ to take back about 50 refugees households who are now living in camps on the Thai Burma border. On April 26, over 30 members of…

The Karen Refugees Committee has issued a statement outlining its position on the repatriation of Karen refugees on the Thai-Burma border. The KRC said that the recent political reforms in Burma that took place in 2010 “signals a ray of hope for many refugees to be able to return to their homeland.” Figures released by The Border Consortium (TBC), an…

Government ministers, police officers, the government’s military and representatives of all of the state’s armed groups met and discussed the setting up of economic zones in Myawaddy, refugees repatriation and the country’s legislation system. Colonel Aung Lwin, the Karen State, Border Security Affairs Minister, met with government department officers, the police and representatives of the State’s various armed groups at…