Over the past thirty years hundreds of thousands of people have fled Burma's brutal military regime seeking refuge on Thailand's porous border. With a war that has been raging on its borders for more than 60 years, thousands of Karen and other ethnic people have been forced from their homes by extreme human rights violations and attrocities committed by the Burmese army and now live a life in limbo in Thailand.
More than 150,000 people live in the nine refugee camps (or...
more »
Over the past thirty years hundreds of thousands of people have fled Burma's brutal military regime seeking refuge on Thailand's porous border. With a war that has been raging on its borders for more than 60 years, thousands of Karen and other ethnic people have been forced from their homes by extreme human rights violations and attrocities committed by the Burmese army and now live a life in limbo in Thailand.
More than 150,000 people live in the nine refugee camps (or temporary shelters as they are officially known) but many thousands more live a stateless existence in hiding and it is estimated that more than 2 million migrant works, many illegal, toil in squalid conditions for little pay, desperately trying to eek out a survival that is not possible for them back in Burma.
The Burmese regime spends upwards of 40% of its GDP on the military with only 2% combined being spent on healthcare and education. With sham elections in November 2010 bringing nothing but a change of clothes to the military rulers, the plight of the Burmese people continues to worsen each day. Continued fighting and political oppression forces more and more people over the border where they face a desperate situation and can run no further.
« less