Over half a million displaced Burmese fleeing aggressive military operations in Myanmar are creating a humanitarian disaster area along its border with Thailand.
Aid agencies maintain that Burmese troops have destroyed nearly 3,000 villages in the last ten years. They say an unmanageable health crisis is now developing in the refugee camps in Thailand that line the frontier.
"In displaced areas, one in five children will die before their fifth birthday," says Nobel peace laureate Dr. Cynthia Maung, who runs a medical camp on the turbulent Thai-Burma border.
Largely from Myanmar's ethnic minority Karen and Karenni groups, 140,000 Burmese refugees are sheltering in nine camps in isolated patches of jungle along the frontier.
Many refugees fled the Myanmar army's violent attacks after watching their villages go up in flames and witnessing torture and rape. In the camps they now face an escalating health crisis and little hope for the future.
In the Mae Sot area alone, a mountainous border town north of Bangkok, 71,600 refugees are crammed into makeshift wooden housing, much of which was built decades ago to accommodate less than half the camp's current population. In such overcrowded conditions, outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever are common.
Sanitation is poor and incidences of tuberculosis, the leading killer of those infected with HIV, are rising. About 1,000 tuberculosis cases are annually reported in the Mae Sot area. Burma already has one of the highest HIV infection rates in Southeast Asia, as one in 100 Myanmar citizens faces a future with HIV/AIDS. The infection rate among refugees is much higher, according to Karen Youth Movement officials and Dr. Cynthia Maung.
Non-government organizations report a growing number of depression cases among refugees, many of whom are turning to alcoholism to wash away despair.
On Monday the Red Cross said the Myanmar government ordered it to close five field offices, effectively ending its humanitarian work there. The offices dealt with refugees located along the Thai-Burma border.
Nothing New
When ethnic minority refugees first began trickling across the Burmese border with Thailand twenty years ago, they were housed in "temporary" facilities, administered by the Thai government. Two decades on, refugees continue to arrive daily as fighting in ethnic minority areas across the border rage with no end in sight.
Myanmar's military junta, officially recognized as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has been in power since the 1980s. The secretive regime has been heavily criticized by human rights activists for its crackdowns on political opposition and policies against ethnic minorities. The regime has held Burma's democratically elected leader, Nobel Prize laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi, under house arrest for 11 years.
In April, the Myanmar army launched the biggest offensive in ten years against the Karen ethnic group, forcing thousands to seek refuge in neighboring countries and displacing many more within the country's borders.
"The camps are like being in prison‚" says Zoya Phan, who trekked through areas of jungle ridden with landmines and pythons to reach safety.
"Yes, you are safe from attacks there, but there is no hope. It is a dead end. There is little chance of an education and no chance of a future."
Zoya was one of the lucky ones. She has now sought refuge in Britain, where she studies and campaigns for freedom from human rights abuses in Myanmar.
Since 2004, some 7,000 Burmese refugees have been resettled from the nine camps to third countries, notably the United States, Canada, and Australia. But for those who are left behind, the future is bleak.
Under Thai regulations, refugees are not allowed to leave the government-run camps and are subject to arrest and deportation back to Myanmar if they do.
Along with an international failure to address the human rights atrocities in Myanmar, the Thai government's restrictive administrative policies have been blamed for the refugee crisis.
"A change in Thai policy and a willingness to speak out on the dire situation in Burma is critical to success in improving the human rights situation in Burma," says Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
While the U.N. Security Council recently initiated political dialogue with the military regime, some refugees pin their future hope on new Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanot.
Surayud has named improving living conditions in the refugee camps among his top priorities. Some camp residents hope that he will issue identity cards, which will permit them to move freely outside the camp to seek work.
But many of those in the camps dare not harbor hopes anymore. They have simply been ignored for too long.
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