POVERTY: THAILAND-MYANMAR: Thousands still displaced along border

 Photo: Chandler Vandergrift/IRIN:
Thousands have fled fighting

BANGKOK, 25 January 2011 (IRIN) - About 10,000 people are displaced and in hiding along the Thai-Burmese border, having fled artillery fire in eastern Myanmar where fighting between the Burmese military and armed groups is expected to continue for several months, aid groups say.
The Back Pack Health Worker Team, a Mae Sot, Thailand-based, NGO that provides healthcare to conflict areas of Myanmar, said the displaced were on both sides of the border and the situation was "highly unstable".
"These people are in hiding sites rather than in officially recognized temporary shelters or holding centres. Large numbers of displaced civilians have now been sent back into Burma [Myanmar], often several times, by Thai authorities," said Back Pack in a report released on 24 January.
The displaced were scattered in about 28 different sites, including makeshift camps in the forest, along the banks of the Moei river that separates Thailand and Myanmar, as well as in villagers' homes, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella group of 12 humanitarian organizations working with Burmese refugees.
"People are trying to take shelter where they can," Sally Thompson, the TBBC's executive director, told IRIN. "When people first came across because of fighting, they did go into official centres [designated by Thai authorities]. As soon as that fighting stopped, people were sent back, so now people are reluctant to go into them because it's thought that people are being returned prematurely."

Ethnic conflict
Burmese troops have for decades waged war against armed ethnic groups, which have sought autonomy from the central government. The latest violence began after the 7 November elections, when tensions flared between government forces and armed ethnic groups that have refused to be incorporated into the country's centrally-controlled Border Guard Force.
After initial battles in the days after the election, there was sporadic conflict throughout December, according to a situation report from the Back Pack. Since 31 December, there have been almost daily skirmishes, it said.
"You've got different ceasefire groups being squeezed, and it's the Burmese attacking them, and they attack back, and until the border guard forces is resolved... we can expect to see these ongoing skirmishes, people coming across the border, back and forth, possibly through May," Thompson said.


 :Photo: Courtesy of Backpack Health Worker Team
A scene inside Karen State where scores are displaced

Aid challenges
Because most of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) are in hiding, it has been challenging for aid organizations to help those in need.
Furthermore, humanitarian groups are facing increasing restrictions and pressure has been mounting for the Karen civilians not to seek refuge in Thailand, Back Pack said.
"It's difficult to find where people are staying. We cannot register every person to find and provide them with assistance," said Mahn Mahn, secretary of Back Pack. "All the assistance needs to go through the Thai provincial and township level, but they do not want to allow civil [society] or NGOs to go through."
According to Thompson, most people are living in "very temporary" shelters, with only the basics for survival, including food and water, from local villagers, friends and local community-based organizations.
"At the moment, the understanding is that basic assistance is getting through to them," she said.
Meanwhile, Back Pack is calling on the authorities to allow the displaced to remain in Thailand for the moment.
"We request that civilians having fled the conflict on to Thai soil be allowed to remain in temporary shelters in Thai territory until it has been proven that it is safe for them to return... civilians fleeing armed conflict should not be returned to Burma unless this return is of a voluntary nature and an impartial assessment has determined that it is safe for them to return," a statement by the group said.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Thailand hosts 96,800 refugees from Myanmar who have been registered, and an estimated 53,000 who have not, in nine government-run camps along the border.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91724

MALARIA: MYANMAR: Bullets not the main killer in conflict area

  Photo: Steve Sandford/IRIN Saw Kwe, a medical officer with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army

MUN RU SHAI, 24 December 2010 (IRIN) - Saw Kwe, a medical officer with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, pulls out a cardboard box full of Artesunate from among the rolls of gauze and drugs used for clotting war wounds.
The 15-year veteran, who has been shot and nearly blown up in past fighting, says the most common killers of civilians are found off the battlefields - not on them.
"The most deadly is malaria," says Saw Kwe, as he hands a packet of pills to a young mother in the Burmese border village of Mun Ru Shai. "We often use up our supplies of Paracetamol to help relieve fever and pain for the sick."
The drugs are much in demand for the steady stream of displaced civilians who have hiked - sometimes for weeks - to border areas in eastern Myanmar to escape the escalating fighting between government troops and ethnic armies following the 7 November elections, the country's first poll in two decades.
In Karen state, conflict and death have become a part of life in fighting that began more than 60 years ago, but deaths from military clashes account for only 2.3 percent of mortality, according to a recent report, Diagnosis: Critical.
The indirect health impacts of the conflict are much more severe, with preventable loss of life accounting for 59.1 percent of all deaths and malaria alone responsible for 24.7 percent, according to the report, compiled by the Mae Tao Clinic.
Often, the villagers caught up in the battle zones are forced to flee with little more than the clothes on their backs and a few bits of food.
Without proper shelter and lacking clean water and food, the most vulnerable - the young and old - become susceptible to preventable illness such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, which can prove fatal if left untreated.
In fact, malaria was responsible for nearly a third of deaths in children under five, while diarrhoea was responsible for 17 percent of fatalities in this age group, states the report.

Caught on the border
Hundreds of families remain displaced and in hiding on both sides of the border, afraid to go home but unable to seek protection in Thailand.
"Right now, there are no official camps for those displaced so it is very difficult to provide even clean water and proper sanitation," says Man Nah, director-general of Backpacker Health Care Workers (BPHCW), a mobile medical unit that travels across the border to provide medical care.
According to recent estimates by BPHCW, nearly 4,000 people regularly flee to Thailand from Karen State areas opposite Kanchanburi and Tak provinces, where government attacks have escalated in recent weeks.


  Photo: Steve Sandford/IRIN: Thousands of ethnic Karen are regularly displaced by the fighting, many of them children

The mobile medical teams have set up three emergency clinics providing medical assistance to civilians having sought shelter in Thailand, particularly the more vulnerable, such as pregnant women, children and the elderly.
The increase in internally displaced persons has exacerbated an already hazardous situation in eastern Myanmar where nearly half a million people are on the run, according to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium.
In cases where the patient is in a serious condition, they will be often transported across the border to the Mae Tao clinic in Thailand, which offers free basic healthcare for refugees, migrant workers and others needing medical aid.
For more complicated cases, arrangements are made between NGOs and provincial hospitals in the region.

Over-crowding
In the bustling emergency ward of the Mae Sot hospital, the burden is all too clear.
Some patients lie on makeshift beds and benches erected in the crowded hallways, an all too common scene that hospital director Ronnatrai Rueangweerayut says will continue as long as there is conflict in the neighbouring country.
"Mae Sot hospital is a government hospital that is [a] non-profit organization," Ronnatrai said. "As you know, if you have no money, you can do nothing. It means that we have to arrange the budget as well as possible so we can treat all the patients in the same manner."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91440