Myanmar:Fifty-eight Bengalis missing as motorboat carrying refugees capsizes

credit EMG 15.MAY

A boat carrying nearly sixty Bengali refugees capsized as it was being pulled by a motorboat manned by government officials.

The move was to protect the refugees from cyclone Mahasen by relocating them from Pauktaw Village to Sintatmaw Village. Six other motorboats made it to the destination safely.

The capsized boat clashed with a rock near at the confluence of Kalaton river and Kyaeku river.

Forty-two Bengalis from the capsized boat were saved and sent to the police station of Pauktaw Township.

Rescued teams were conducted search and rescue of the missing Bengalis.

Refugees from two IDP camps located in Kyautphy Township are safely moved to the temporary camps in Kanyintaw village on May 12.

Refugees from the area that cyclone can hit are safely moved to the monasteries, schools and IDP camps away from the weather forecasts.

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Published on 12 May 2013

ဒုကၡသည္ေတြ အိမ္မျပန္ႏိုင္ … ေျမျမွဳပ္မိုင္းအႏၱရာယ္

ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဟာ ေျမျမွဳပ္မိုင္းေၾကာင့္ ေသဆံုးသူအမ်ားဆံုးရွိတဲ့ ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံေတြထဲမွာ ႏွစ္စဥ္ပါဝင္ေနဆဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ျပည္တြင္းစစ္ ႏွစ္ ၅ဝေက်ာ္လာၿပီး အစိုးရတပ္ကေရာ တိုင္းရင္းသား လက္နက္ကိုင္တပ္ေတြဘက္ကပါ ေျမျမွဳပ္မိုင္း အသံုးျပဳမႈေတြေၾကာင့္ အျပစ္မဲ့အရပ္သားေတြ ေသဆံုးမႈ၊ ထိခိုက္ဒဏ္ရာရမႈေတြကလည္း အခုထိ ရွိေနဆဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

About 6,000 refugees remain in Meikhtila shelters

CREDIT EMG

About 6,000 refugees remain in Meikhtila shelters, according to sources.

The communal violence that broke out on March 20 in Meikhtila left about 10,000 people homeless. At the end of April, rehabilitation works has begun for the homeowners.

“The Red Cross is still providing 25,000 liters of drinking water. It is assisting in the basic needs for the victims at the shelters,” the district officer Nay Oo for Meikhtila Red Cross Association said.

“We have been living at the camp for over 40 days as our house was burnt down. We heard that a new housing will be built but nothing has come yet in reality. Whether it is a house or a hut, we don’t mind. We just want to live in our own place,” a victim who lives in the shelter said.

“We have made some arrangements for those whose houses were not burnt. We have relocated them to their homes. For those whose houses were burnt down in violence, we sent them to camps and shelters. The camps opened at schools have been now moved to government properties. Inngone camps will move to Wuntawpyi monastery. As the rainy season is on the way, there are not enough tents in the district. We are planning to build more tents. We, ‘88 generation Peace and Open Society, are also helping the victims,” Htain Min Khaing of the group said.

UN aid reaches refugees in Kachin, child soldiers discharged

20 FEBRUARY 2013 EMG

A United Nations convoy of humanitarian aid for about 5,000 refugees arrived in Phakant, Kachin on Sunday and more convoys will be sent to the conflict-torn state, a UN official in Yangon said on Tuesday.

Aye Win, national information officer at the UN Information Centre in Yangon, said “we are also planning to give more assistance. Aid will go not only to Phakant but also to other needy refugee camps in other areas”.

The convoy to Phakant was the first of its kind to reach those displaced by fighting since the conflict between the Kachin Independence Army and Myanmar government troops escalated last December, the UN said.

Its 10 trucks – containing rice, cooking oil, salt, mosquito nets, blankets, medicine and water filters – left Myitkyina on Sunday morning and arrived in Phakant refugee camps that evening.

The supplies are for 5,000 refugees in 41 camps.

Ashok Nigam, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said the UN welcomed the acceptance of humanitarian aid by the government and the Kachin Independence Organisation.

The UN estimates that more than 80,000 people have been displaced by the conflict in Kachin since it broke out in June 2011. President’s Office Minister Aung Min said in late January that there might be more than100,000.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said on Monday that it welcomed the official discharge of 24 child soldiers by the government’s military.

China urges for ‘peaceful resolution’ to conflict in neighboring Myanmar

15.JANUARY 2013 GLOBAL TIMES

China expressed hope for a peaceful resolution to the escalating armed clashes in neighboring Myanmar on Monday between government forces and Kachin Independence Army. Clashes in northern Myanmar resulted in three bombs landing Chinese territory in late December last year.

“We hope that the Myanmar government and relevant parties can solve their dispute through peaceful dialogue in order to restore peace and stability in northern Myanmar,” said Hong Lei, spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a press conference on Monday.

Hong also said that China has undertaken necessary measures to secure its own border areas and protect Chinese nationals living in the area. 

14.JANUARY 2013  The local government of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, had planned four camps to receive refugees from the northern Kachin state of Myanmar if the conflict there between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar government worsens.

Gong Jianrong, deputy director of the publicity department of Yingjiang county in Dehong, told the Global Times on Saturday that they have prepared emergency supplies in the camps.

Gong added that the camps, which are east of the frontier village of Nabang, are capable of receiving over 10,000 refugees.

The conflict in Kachin has brought economic losses to local people in both Nabang village in China and Laiza village in Myanmar. The two villages, separated by a river, used to have frequent exchanges.

“All the businesspeople from Nabang have run away,” said a trader in Laiza, adding that her own business had also come to a halt in the conflict-torn state.

A senior source from the KIA told the Global Times on Friday that a military helicopter from the Myitkyina air force base was shot down by KIA with “new weapons” while it was undertaking a military mission with another three copters.

But the government announced that the helicopter made an emergency landing into a forest due to engine failure, 48 kilometers south of the state’s capital Myitkyina.

Two air force pilots and one sergeant died in the accident. Analysts said Kachin might see heavier military attacks after the accident, which made the government “lose face” before international society.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/755580.shtml

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Burma_Thailand: Shan community groups: Don’t push refugees back into active war zone

 

 

MONDAY, 27 AUGUST 2012 15:47 SHAN COB

August 27, 2012

Press release

Shan community groups: Don’t push refugees back into active war zone

Shan community groups are gravely concerned about imminent repatriation of over 500 refugees from a camp on the northern Thai border into an area of active conflict.

Today, the Norwegian Refugee Council, contracted under the Norwegian-led “Myanmar Peace Support Initiative,” will begin house-to-house surveys of refugees in Koung Jor camp, northern Chiang Mai province, about their willingness to return to Mong Hta, about 20 kms across the border. This almost deserted village has been designated as a resettlement site for refugees during ceasefire negotiations between the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) and the Burmese government.

Since the SSA-S signed a ceasefire in December 2011, there have been ongoing skirmishes, including in Mong Hta, between Shan troops and the Burma Army, which has not pulled back from conflict areas and has reneged on territorial agreements. Burmese Railway Minister Aung Min had promised the sub-townships of Ho Mong and Mong Hta, bordering Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai provinces, to the SSA-S, but there are still over 40 Burmese military camps in these areas.

The refugees in Koung Jor told Norwegian representatives in July they did not want to go back to Mong Hta due to fear of the Burma Army and other pro-government militias in the area, which is littered with land-mines. Most of the refugees are not from Mong Hta, but from Central Shan State.

The survey starting today in the camp is spreading panic among the refugees, who fear they will shortly be pushed back. The Norwegian Refugee Council has programs inside Burma, but has never before worked with Shan refugees.

“The refugees must not be used as guinea-pigs to test out the peace process,” said Sai Khur Hseng, of the Shan Sapawa Environmental Organisation “Instead of putting pressure on the refugees, international donors should pressure the Burmese government to negotiate a just and lasting peace.”

Shan community groups released a statement in June 2012 calling on foreign governments and donors supporting the peace process in Burma to be neutral and not to push ethnic groups under the Burmese government’s pro-military 2008 constitution.

Sai Khur Hseng: 0816722031, shancbosforum@gmail.com
Ying Harn Fah, 0892627848
Moan Kaein, 0819921121
Charm Tong: 0816036655

Shan community groups: Shan Human Rights Foundation, Shan Sapawa Environmental Organisation, Shan Women’s Action Network, Shan Youth Power, Shan Youth Network Group

 ———

Background of Koung Jor Refugee Camp 

Koung Jor camp is situated about 500 meters from the Shan border, in Wiang Haeng district of Chiang Mai province. The refugees in the camp fled to Thailand in May 2002 from fighting between the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) and the Burma Army.

Most of the refugees are from Central Shan State. They had been forced from their homes during the mass forced relocation by the Burma Army in 1996-1998, and moved to stay in villages close to the Thai border, south of Mong Hta, opposite Wiang Haeng. At that time, the border crossing point was open, and villagers were able to make a living from trading.

The area of Mong Hta, formerly under Shan resistance control, had been taken over by the Burma Army in 1996, when Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army surrendered. During 1999-2000, the Burma Army allowed United Wa State Army (UWSA) to move troops and families from northern Shan State into the area. In May 2002, the SSA-S attacked the Burma Army and UWSA bases around Mong Hta, causing villagers in the area to flee to Thailand for safety. Some villagers who were left behind were tortured and killed by the Burma Army.

Over 600 refugees were given shelter in temples on the Thai side, where they lived in cramped conditions for one year. In mid-2003 they were allowed to set up a camp in the grounds of Wat Fah Wiang Inn Temple, close to the border crossing of Lak Teng. 

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Resettle Karen refugees from Thailand in DKBA area

On Thursday 19 April 2012, government officials from 14 government departments including Myawaddy district administer U Myint Tin visited and observed Wall Lay and Chu Ka Li, where under control by Kalo Htu Baw strategy command in Karen National Organization (KKO), in Myawaddy Township in Karen State for resettlement of people who live along the Myanmar-Thai border, according to KKO’s spokesperson.

“The important thing is to resettle the refugees living in Thailand. They visited Wall Lay and Chu Ka Li area by that reason. This is one of the agendas of Prime Minister of Karen State,” KKO spokesperson said.

“The places, where they observed, are not under controlled by them and have no authority. Those places are fully controlled by the KNU and KRC. So they have to discuss about it,” the spokesperson added.

After government officials discussed with KKO, government officials would stay in Myawaddy for two days. KKO has assumed that government officials have objectives of resettling the Burmese refugees living in Thai refugee camps. Under the current political situation in Myanmar, it would be early for refugees going back to their villages. It is impossible to go back home if there is no genuine reconciliation in the country, according to an officer in charge in Noe Phoe refugee camp.

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“The government wants to close refugee camps but they do not solve real problems. After Myanmar government agreed ceasefire agreement with ethnic armed groups, some government officials has travelled to foreign countries and some officials have been busy with resettlement for refugees and displaced people. What do you think what they are going to do after all these thing have done? They will send their troops to control those people. Then they will torture the people. These kinds of things they have done in the past” the officer in charge in Noe Phoe refugee camp explained.

Thailand also has desire of the resettlement for Myanmar refugees. In a few months ago, Thai authorities visited refugee camps and urged people going back to their home villages, according to the camp officer. According to the TBBC’s refugee statistic, there are about 150,000 refugees living in Thai refugee camps. Thus, Thailand wants the settlement program can be successfully solved in a short time.