Push-backs to Burma into Heavily Mined Areas Threaten Lives

(New York, February 6, 2010) – Thailand should immediately stop pressuring ethnic Karen refugees to return to Burma, Human Rights Watch said today. Repatriation to the designated “return zone” in Burma would place returnees at serious risk of human rights abuses and landmines.

On February 5, Thai military and civilian officials sent three families of Karen refugees, comprising 12 adults and children, from a temporary refugee site at the Thai border to Ler Per Her, a site for internally displaced persons inside Karen state in Burma. The families are part of a group of 30 families recently singled out to return to an area in Burma from which they fled after fighting in mid-2009. Thai military officials gave assurances to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that any returns would be voluntarily, but the return followed weeks of aggressive tactics to coerce the refugees to return, Human Rights Watch said.

“Thai authorities are cajoling and threatening Karen refugees to head back into harm’s way, while maintaining Thailand is not breaching international refugee law,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Thai government should reverse course before these refugees are harmed by mines or pressed into forced labor by the Burmese army.”

In May and June 2009, approximately 4,500 Karen fled pervasive use of forced labor and a military offensive in northeastern Karen state by the Burmese army and their proxy-militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), against the anti-government Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). They crossed the border and settled into Nong Bua and Mae U Su, two temporary refugee sites in Tha Song Yang district of Tak province in western Thailand. An estimated 2,400 of the refugees are living in rudimentary quarters in these isolated temporary sites close to the border.

Local Thai military officials claim there is no fighting across the border in Burma and assert that it is safe for the Karen to return. However, refugees at one of the sites told Human Rights Watch there has been extensive planting of landmines in their villages back in Burma, and they fear being used as forced porters by the Burmese army and the DKBA.

Human Rights Watch has grave fears for the safety of civilians forcibly returned to active conflict zones inside Burma. All three parties to the conflict in Karen state extensively use antipersonnel mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The Burmese army, DKBA, and KNLA continue to plant landmines near their military bases, on trails in the jungles, and around civilian settlements and agricultural fields. According to the Burma section of the annual Landmine Monitor Report there were 721 casualties from landmine injuries in the country in 2008. Burma has not ratified the Mine Ban Treaty and rarely participates in international forums to ban the use of landmines. There are virtually no de-mining operations currently in eastern Burma, and landmine education is limited.

On January 18, a 25-year-old Karen woman who was nine months pregnant stepped on a landmine in the refugee return zone, losing half of her left foot.

I walked back into Karen state with my ten-year-old nephew. I was 9 months pregnant. I was walking on the path leading into the village, and I followed the buffalo just off the path and then stepped on the landmine. Half of my foot disappeared. I could not walk. My nephew ran back over to Thailand to get my husband to help me. It took about 30 minutes for them to come. Three men carried me on a [makeshift bamboo] stretcher. I was worried, I feared for my baby. I was taken to Mae Sot hospital [in Thailand] and they took my baby out [C-section] on the same day. I don’t want to go back to my village [in Burma]. I only went back once and I stepped on a landmine. I’m afraid to go back again. It is not safe anywhere.

“The risks from landmines to people forced back to Burma are deadly real,” said Adams.

Human Rights Watch called on the Thai government to halt all plans to return the group and to allow UNHCR to interview and conduct refugee status determinations. International refugee support organizations have repeatedly recommended that all 2,400 Karen be temporarily relocated to an existing refugee camp at Mae La, a one hour’s drive south of Tha Song Yang.

Human Rights Watch said that the Thai government should not heed empty promises by the DKBA and KNLA, which have reportedly told Thai military officials and refugee representatives at Nong Bua and Mae U Su that they will clear landmines in the Ler Per Her return area. The DKBA has agreed to become part of the Burmese army’s “Border Security Guard,” and has expanded its territorial control over much of the Thai-Burma border in Karen state. Armed groups make extensive use of landmines to exert local control in situations of continued low level conflict punctuated by military offensives.

“Trusting armed militias to remove the landmines they have sown is no way to reassure refugees, and Thai authorities should not be complicit in this charade,” Adams said. “Thailand should instead properly screen, register and shelter these families instead of threatening them into crossing a border.”

To read the Human Rights Watch World Report Burma chapter, click here:

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87392

To read the December 2006 Human Rights Watch news release, “Burma: Landmines Kill, Maim and Starve Civilians,” please visit:http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/12/20/burma-landmines-kill-maim-and-starve-civilians

For more information, please contact:

In London, Brad Adams (English): +44-20-7713-2767; or +44-7908-728-333 (mobile)
In Bangkok, Dave Mathieson (English): +66-87-176-2205 (mobile)
In Washington, DC, Sophie Richardson (English, Mandarin): +1-202-612-4341; or +1-917-721-7473 (mobile)

Caught in the crossfire of Burma’s civil war, hundreds of thousands of Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan are trapped in No Man’s Land

At night, my mother and I boiled rice while my sister dried our wet clothes by the fire,” said Moo Kay Paw. “We were too scared to light a fire during the day in case the government troops saw it and came for us.

“We survived for weeks only on boiled rice. At night, we slept rough on the ground with pieces of bamboo for pillows. I shared a single blanket with my four sisters to stay warm,” she said.

In many ways, her story is typical of someone from a farming village in eastern Burma. Constantly on the move to avoid the war between the Tatmadaw—the Burmese military government’s forces—and the ethnic insurgents of the region, Moo Kay Paw’s family has lived in a state of fear since the 1980s.

The first of five daughters, she was born in 1991 to a rice-farming Karen family in the village of Chaw Wah Den in Pegu Division. As a young girl she witnessed junta troops looting her village many times.

Sometimes, she said, they burned down houses, barns or rice stocks, and often conscripted men and boys to serve as porters, carrying military supplies for days on end.

On one occasion, her brother was gravely injured deactivating landmines in the jungle, she said. He was blinded and lost both hands in the blast.

Moo Kay Paw’s family finally left their village on Dec. 26, 2004, the same day her father was killed.

“We knew that the government troops were close by and my father told my mother to get all the girls and my brother together and wait outside the village in the jungle until the soldiers had gone,” she recalled.

They packed some blankets and clothes and headed for a hilltop. From there they saw the government troops enter the village and confront Moo Kay Paw’s father and the other men who had remained to safeguard their homes.

“The soldiers dragged him outside and began hitting him with their rifle butts,” she recalled tearfully. “They smashed all his teeth out before they shot him. Then they burned the village down.”

Her family—a widowed mother, five young girls and a disabled son—walked through the jungle for weeks, carrying clothes, blankets, a machete, lighters and some food.

They carried as much dry rice as they could and later scavenged for roots, berries, leaves and other food in the jungle.

Sometimes they joined other families, settled for a few months and tried to grow crops. But, sooner or later, the conflict caught up with them.

After years of living rough or in temporary shelters, Moo Kay Paw’s family reached Ei Tu Hta village in eastern Karen State in August 2007. They have sheltered there since.

In the terminology of relief agencies, Moo Kay Paw’s family are classified as “internally displaced persons,” or IDPs, meaning that they have been displaced from their ancestral homes, usually by government troops, and are now living rough in the jungle or are sheltering in “safe” havens under the control of ethnic armies.

The IDPs are refugees in every sense, but lack official recognition.

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Wife of Col Ner Dah Mya, the son of late KNU leader Gen Bo Mya, has been detained after police found powder for making explosives at his house, KNU sources said.

The purpose of the raids is not clear and The Irrawaddy has been unable to get independent confirmation.

Leaders whose homes were raided included: Gen Tamla Baw, the chairman of the KNU; Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the KNU, and Saw David Takabaw, the vice-president of the KNU.

The Thai officers were looking for ammunition but found nothing at the homes of the other KNU and KNLA leaders, who were not arrested, sources said.

Many exiled community and political organizations’ offices and migrant schools in Mae Sot are closed for security reasons. Rumors circulating in Mae Sot suggest more raids will occur.

Observers said Thai authorities have stepped up pressure on KNU and KNLA leaders since early this year.

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More than 4,000 ethnic Karen in eastern Burma have fled to Thailand after renewed fighting between Burmese government forces and Karen rebels.

“ We are illegal here and eventually we’ll have problems with the Thai authorities ”
Rainbow, Karen refugee
Many of those who have fled over the past week were living at the Ler Per Her camp for internally displaced people in Burma – and had already left their home villages.

Rainbow, who is the secretary of the camp and the headmaster of the school there, told the BBC News website about what is forcing the Karen to flee and the difficult circumstances they now face:

Last week government troops attacked our camp. They were shelling every day. The fighting between the Burmese army and the Karen rebels was taking place close to the camp. It became a dangerous place. So we decided to leave.

There were 1,264 people living in the camp. Since October 2008 we’ve had about 300 new arrivals.

The Democratic Karen Buddhist Amy (DKBA) [allied to the Burmese army] have been trying to force people in the area to join them in the last few months.

They wanted to be in control of the area and they needed more people.

In order to put pressure on villagers they put mines close to rice fields. To avoid being recruited to the army, many have abandoned their homes and farms and gone to live in camps for internally displaced people.

For the rest of the article from BBC CLICK HERE

EI TU HTA—After overrunning the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) Brigade 7 headquarters in southern Karen State, a joint Burmese army and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) force plans to resume its offensive in northern Karen State in September, and take over the remaining KNLA bases along the Thai-Burmese border.

KNLA Brigade 5 troops prepare to resist the joint Burmese DKBA offensive. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing/ The Irrawaddy)
The Commander of KNLA Brigade 5, Baw Kyaw, said his soldiers will defend the area and its villages to the best of their ability. He expects the offensive will come soon.

“If the DKBA follows the orders of the Burmese army, they are our enemy,” Baw Kyaw told The Irrawaddy in a KNLA controlled area on the border. The KNLA is the military wing of the Karen National Union.

Many Karen villagers in Papun District in northern Karen State and along the Salween River on the Thai-Burmese border are on alert against the joint Burmese and DKBA force, Karen villagers at the border said.

If the offensive succeeds, thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in northern Karen State and more than 4,000 Karen refugees in Ei Tu Hta, a temporary camp on the Salween River, will be forced to flee to Thai soil, Karen sources said.

Wah Eh Htoo, secretary of Ei Tu Hta refugee camp told The Irrawaddy: “Villagers fear the DKBA plan to take over the border.”

Ei Htu Ta camp is located on the Burmese bank of the Salween River in Karen State.

“We told the refugees to pack their pots and plates after meals and be ready to flee with other belongings at any time,” said Wah Eh Htoo.

For the rest of the article CLICK HERE

By Hannah Beech / Bangkok
Friday, Jan. 30, 2009

Living under the thumb of a brutal junta, the average Burmese hardly leads an easy life. But the plight of the country’s ethnic minorities, many of whom once waged long and bloody insurgencies against the military regime, is even worse. As a new human-rights report released on Jan. 28, as well as the recent stories of destitute refugees who fled Burma attest to, members of Burma’s ethnic groups face persistent discrimination by the military regime. They are the targets of unpaid forced labor campaigns, scorched-earth policies that destroy farmland and relocation programs that require entire villages to move at a moment’s notice.

Called Myanmar by its military leaders, Burma derives its name from the Buddhist Burman (or Bamar) people. The country’s largest ethnic group, the Burman historically lived in Burma’s central and upper plains. But this patchwork country of 55 million is made up of more than 100 unique ethnicities. The isolation enforced by Burma’s numerous mountains and hills helped nurture these culturally discrete groups, making it one of the most diverse countries in Southeast Asia, despite its relatively small geographic size. Here are five ethnicities, some of who have unsuccessfully waged long insurgencies against the central government and others who have made news recently because of the abuses they have suffered at the hands of the Burman-dominated regime.

For the rest of the article CLICK HERE

As of June 13th 2009, attacks by joint State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) forces against a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) camp located near to Ler Per Her camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Pa’an District of Karen State, continue. The attacks began on Friday, June 5th, with mortar fire followed by a ground assault. By the end of June 5th the refugees from Ler Per Her IDP camp and surrounding villages who had fled to Thailand reached over 3,000.[1] In the ground attacks, DKBA soldiers were operating at the front while SPDC soldiers followed behind and those conducting the shelling remained at the back. Meanwhile, on Sunday June 7th, joint SPDC/DKBA forces who had advanced towards the base of KNLA Battalion #202, which lies about 30 km north of Ler Per Her began shelling the KNLA camp there as well.

Since June 7th 2009, SPDC and DKBA forces operating around Ler Per Her have ceased ground attacks and have instead focused on shelling the KNLA camp from a distance. The SPDC has reportedly been using 81 mm and 66 mm mortars, rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and 75 mm and 82 mm recoilless guns. Two or three shells have reportedly struck Ler Per Her IDP camp and another 9 or 10 shells have fallen just short of the IDP camp. Some mortar shells and RPGs which the joint SPDC/DKBA forces have fired at the KNLA camp have overshot their mark and landed in Thailand.

The Karen Information Committee (KIC) released this photo which they describe as an RPG fired by joint SPDC/DKBA forces on June 8th which landed in the village of Noh Boh (Nong Bua) in Thailand. [Photo: KIC]
On Monday, June 8th, three RPGs which the joint SPDC/DKBA forces fired at the KNLA camp landed in Noh Boh (Nong Bua) village of Tha Song Yang District of Tak Province in Thailand. The Karen Information Committee has released a photo of one of the RPGs that reportedly landed in Noh Boh village on June 8th. Although KHRG has not yet been able to confirm the manufactured origin of these RPGs, the photo released by KIC may show a Chinese-made Type-69 RPG. DKBA forces previously fired this type of RPG at Htee Ber Kee village in Dta Greh Township of Pa’an District, in October 2008.[2]

On June 10th, 4 more projectiles (either mortar shells or RPGs) landed in nearby Mae Salik village, also in Tha Song Yang District of Thailand. One of the June 10th mortar shells landed near to Mae Salik Luang School (a local Thai government school) but did not explode. Another two exploded in the bean fields of a local Mae Salik villager, although no one was injured.

Since June 10th 2009, Mae Salik Luang School in Mae Salik village has been closed due to concerns about ongoing shelling by SPDC and DKBA soldiers across the river. The villagers of Mae Salik, who are predominantly Thai-Karen, are also concerned that the DKBA will cross the border and enter the village. According to one Mae Salik villager,

“Right now they [DKBA] are staying very close to our village. A few days ago, the DKBA took a boat that belongs to Saw Th—, a Mae Salik villager, but in order to use it, they need petrol. So we were warned by our leader [the village head] that if there is any stranger, we have to be careful not to sell petrol to him. Now we can’t travel freely, as we have to be mindful of the situation.”

- Naw P— (female, 50), Mae Salik village, Thailand (June 2009)

There are now well over 3,000 refugees from Ler Per Her IDP camp and the surrounding villages who have fled to Thailand to avoid fighting and forced labour as porters carrying SPDC and DKBA munitions and supplies amidst the violence. According to the Karen CBO Emergency Relief Committee[3], as of June 11th, 3,446 villagers from 14 villages (including Ler Per Her IDP camp) had been forced to flee from the Ler Per Her area to Oo Thoo Hta, Noh Boh, Mae Salik and Th’Lay Hta villages in Tha Song Yang District of Thailand.[4] The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) provides a figure of 3,521 as the number of refugees from the Ler Per Her area, which FBR says are now residing at Oo Thoo Hta, Noh Boh, Mae Salik and Mae Salik Noi in Tha Song Yang District.[5] However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which limits its numbers to those its staff can personally verify, has only confirmed a population of about 2,000 new refugees from the Ler Per Her area now residing at five sites in Thailand. Local Thai authorities have expressed concern for the security of some of the new refugees who currently remain at a site along the Moei River, and are reportedly considering relocating them to a more secure location.

Despite the large numbers of refugees from Ler Per Her IDP camp and the surrounding area, the residents of some villages near to Ler Per Her have yet to flee their homes and thus remain amidst the fighting with little security. Some of these villagers may have been conscripted as porters to carry supplies for local SPDC and DKBA forces amidst the current fighting. Before the attacks began on June 5th, some of these villagers had been using mobile phones (connecting through Thai mobile networks) to contact fellow villagers who had already fled to Thailand. Since the start of the attacks on June 5th, these communications have ended, although the reason for this is not clear.

According to refugees who have recently arrived in Thailand from the Ler Per Her area, on June 11th 2009, a DKBA officer from Battalion #4 of Brigade #999 sent a villager from the Ler Per Her area as a messenger to contact the new refugees. The messenger informed those who had fled from Mae La Ah Kee, Mae Lah Ah Htah and Wah Mee Gklah villages that they were to send back 3,000 Thai Baht (approx. US $88) per village to pay the DKBA to cover the cost of hiring porters to carry supplies amidst the ongoing attacks. The refugees told KHRG that they were not going to send back money to the DKBA now that they have already fled to Thailand.

So far, many of the newly arrived refugees who have arrived in Thailand from the Ler Per Her area have received some form of humanitarian assistance, either from international NGOs, the UNHCR, Karen community-based organisations, the Thai Healthcare Department or a combination of these. At present, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) has taken the lead role in coordinating international humanitarian assistance to the refugees, while Karen CBOs have formed a Karen CBO Emergency Relief Committee to coordinate assistance amongst local Karen groups. Nevertheless, there remains a need for further humanitarian assistance. In particular, the UNHCR has noted that “Among the most urgently needed items are clothes, especially baby clothes, as well as soap, and bamboo pallets to keep from having to sleep in the mud amid heavy rains.”[6] Furthermore, given the ongoing insecurity on the Burma side of the border, these refugees remain in need of protection assistance and any future repatriation to Burma must of course be voluntary.

While the recent flow of refugees to Thailand from the Ler Per Her area is larger than any single occasion in recent years, it is not an isolated event. Rather, the joint SPDC/DKBA attacks at Ler Per Her, the forced labour of villagers to carry military supplies amidst the fighting and the forced recruitment of new DKBA soldiers that preceded it, fit into a wider trend that can be traced back to the latter half of 2008.

KHRG began reporting on the increased forced recruitment of soldiers by the DKBA and on joint SPDC/DKBA operations in Pa’an and Dooplaya Districts as early as September 2008.[7] As one local resident in Pa’an District noted at the time, “Their [the DKBA's] aim is [to send the] new soldiers to Dooplaya District. I heard [this] from a village head. The DKBA has signed an agreement with the SPDC that this year they will attack Dooplaya District until they win.” Subsequently, in early 2009, KHRG reported increased attacks by DKBA and joint SPDC/DKBA forces on KNLA positions in Pa’an and Dooplaya Districts and the impact these attacks were having on local villagers.[8] This fighting brought insecurity and new refugees into Umphang and Pobpra Districts of Tak Province in Thailand. More recently, KHRG reported on joint SPDC/DKBA attacks against the camp of KNLA Battalion #201 at Ghaw Lay Kee in Dooplaya District that ended with the fall of the camp on April 28th, after about 200 villagers had fled for safety to Pobpra District in Thailand.[9]

Since May 2009, KHRG researchers operating in Pa’an District have been reporting that DKBA officials in Pa’an District have begun referring to the DKBA as the “Border Guard Force”, using the English acronym “BGF”. In a meeting in May 2009 between SPDC and DKBA authorities, the SPDC reportedly ordered the DKBA to recruit more soldiers to serve in the Border Guard Force and to work towards eliminating the fixed positions of KNLA forces. This meeting was followed by yet another round of DKBA forced recruitment amongst local villagers living in Pa’an District. When 119 villagers fled to Ler Per Her IDP camp to evade this recruitment in late May 2009, they brought the camp’s total population to over 1,200 people.[10] However, as has been reported recently by KHRG and others, joint SPDC/DKBA forces began attacks against the camp of KNLA Battalions #101, 21 and 22 located near to Ler Per Her on June 5th. In the recent fighting around Ler Per Her over 3,000 villagers, including those who had earlier fled forced recruitment, evacuated to Tha Song Yang District in Thailand.

As noted in this and previous news bulletins, joint forces from DKBA Brigade #555 and SPDC Light Infantry Division #22 have also been shelling the camp of KNLA Battalion #202, which lies about 30 km north of Ler Per Her, opposite Thailand’s Mae Salik village. Refugees have already fled this area as well, and there remains a possibility that others will flee as the security situation changes.

Footnotes

[1] For more information see Over 3,000 villagers flee to Thailand amidst ongoing SPDC/DKBA attacks, KHRG, June 7th 2009.

[2] Insecurity amidst the DKBA – KNLA conflict in Dooplaya and Pa’an districts, KHRG, February 2009.

[3] The Karen CBO Emergency Relief Committee is a coalition of Karen community-based organisations which formed in June 2009 to provide aid to the new refugees from the Ler Per Her area following the recent attacks.

[4] This information was received by email from the Karen CBO Emergency Relief Committee on June 11th 2009.

[5] “Burma Army and DKBA mortars land in Thailand as attacks on Karen people continue in Ler Per Her refugee camp area,” Free Burma Rangers, June 12th 2009.

[6] “Thailand: UN working to assist 2,000 recently-arrived Myanmar Refugees,” UNHCR, June 12th 2009.

[7] See Forced recruitment by DKBA forces in Pa’an District, KHRG, September 2008 and Human minesweeping and Forced relocation as SPDC and DKBA step up joint operations in Pa’an District, KHRG, October 2008.

[8] See DKBA soldiers burn down huts, detain villagers and loot property in Thailand, KHRG, January 2009 and Insecurity amidst the DKBA – KNLA conflict in Dooplaya and Pa’an districts, KHRG, February 2009.

[9] Joint SPDC/DKBA attacks, recruitment and the impact on villagers in Dooplaya and Pa’an districts, KHRG, May 2009.

[10] Joint SPDC/DKBA attacks, recruitment and the impact on villagers in Dooplaya and Pa’an Districts, KHRG, May 2009.

A joint force of troops from the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a ceasefire militia group, has focused its offensive on the headquarters of Brigade 7 of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), according to Karen sources.

In response, KNLA Brigade 7 has increased its mortar shelling of the joint force, said the sources.

The clash between the two armed groups has been intensifying around the KNLA Brigade 7 headquarters since early this week, with heavy shelling being carried out by both sides.

The joint force, which earlier vowed that it would take over the KNLA Brigade 7 headquarters by June 16, is still facing stiff resistance.

On June 17, fighting and mortar shelling continued for almost an entire day without interruption, according to Saw Steve, a relief worker who is also a leader of the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People, whose units operate in the fighting zone.

“KNLA Brigade 7 is not going to lose its headquarters easily,” he added.

The combined force has already taken over three military bases belonging to Battalions 21, 22 and 101 of KNLA Brigade 7.

Sources from the Karen Nation Union (KNU), the political wing of the KNLA, said that they allowed the three military bases to be captured because they did not want to kill fellow Karen soldiers who were fighting alongside Burmese troops.

The KNU claimed about 20 soldiers from the joint force were killed and about 50 were injured, while five KNLA soldiers were hospitalized in Mae Sot, a Thai border town.

Sources said that the fighting is expected to intensify further as KNLA Brigade 7 seeks to defend its headquarters.

The joint force started its offensive against KNLA Brigade 7 in the first week of June. Fierce fighting between the two sides since then has forced about 4,000 Karen refugees to flee to Thailand for safety.

The DKBA split from its mother organization, the KNU, and reached a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese regime in 1995.

The KNU has been fighting for autonomy for six decades and has never signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military government.

Fierce fighting and constant mortar fire close to the Thai border by Burmese forces has forced an estimated 4,000 ethnic Karen to leave their villages since the beginning of June.

“Every day more people are arriving, looking for refuge,” Poe Shan of the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) told The Irrawaddy. “We expect many more to cross the border in search of safety in the coming weeks as the rainy season sets in.”

So far, the refugees have mostly come from seven villages in Burma near the Moei River; there are more than 40 villages in the area where the fighting is intense.

“If the fighting continues, at least 8,000 more villagers will have to escape across the border,” said Zipporah Sein, the general secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU).

“The key thing now is to provide them with more adequate shelter,” said Sally Thompson, the deputy head of the Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC). “They have food and medical attention, but the flimsy, makeshift homes they are now in provide inadequate protection from the weather.”

Local Thai authorities are drawing up an Action Plan, which would then be discussed with the international aid agencies and local NGOs before implementation.

Many recent refugees are crowded into the grounds of a Thai temple, a couple of kilometers inside the Thai border, where they lack access to basic necessities, aid workers said.

“They are in relatively good condition,” said Kitty McKinsey, the regional spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Mae Sot.

“They are not emaciated, though many have walked for more than seven days to escape from the Myanmar [Burma] army,” she told The Irrawaddy. “They hurriedly left with nothing but the clothes on their back.”

Ma Theingyi, 33, the mother of five children, said: “We desperately need soap, toothbrushes and cooking utensils. More than anything though, we need clothes for our children.”

Most refugees are women and children. Some of the men stayed behind to look after the fields, aid workers said. Others were already in Thailand as illegal immigrants working in foreign-owned textile factories along the border. Others are soldiers in the KNU’s armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).

The mass exodus of villagers from inside Burma began after the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the Burmese army launched a major offensive against KNU strongholds. This recent assault began about two weeks ago when the army started shelling the border area and terrorizing villagers with the help of the DKBA, a breakaway Karen faction that signed a ceasefire agreement with the military government.

Two weeks ago, the DKBA had called many village headmen to a
meeting where they said they would conscript more than a 1,000 soldiers—around 10 men per village, which prompted the mass exodus. Headmen were also told that each village had to buy two hand-held radios for the DKBA.

“We knew what that meant; all the able-bodied men would be used by the army in one way or another and on top of that we would have to give them money and food rations,” said 41-year-old Pa Naw Naw, who fled with his wife and three children. He left his 11-year-old son behind to keep an eye on their fields and livestock.

The UN says there are some 2,000 new refugees in Thailand. Some aid agencies estimate the figure at 4,000—with many people secretly living with friends or hiding in the jungle on either side of the border.

Refugees are receiving aid at five sites, including Noh Bo temple in Mae Sot. Thai authorities have set up medical centers to provide health care and medical examinations. The TBBC has distributed rice, beans, fish paste and salt, while the Karen Refugee Council has provided blankets and clothes. The UNHCR has provided plastic sheeting and tarpaulins for the shelter.

The rain, which is already falling heavily on most days, is making life more difficult. Most refugees are reluctant to be moved far from the border.

“They all say they want go back as soon as possible, said McKinsey. “But to what—they all said their crops and livestock had been confiscated by the authorities. They are clearly traumatized. They have lived with this kind of suffering all their lives.”

A 66-year old grandmother, Noh Thay May,  told The Irrawaddy. “I have been on the move since I was five-years-old. My days are numbered. All I want is not to have to move again.”

Meanwhile, in Burma many villagers are bracing themselves for more fighting and shelling. The next few days are likely to see the Burmese military substantially step up military operations, a Thai military officer told local journalists a few days ago.

As fighting continues, more Karen refugees are certain to seek safety across the border in Thailand.

“We want an end to all this fighting,” said Pa Kyaw, 30, who found shelter at Noh Bo monastery. “All we want is to be left alone in peace and to be able to return to our homes.”

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