Returning Karen Refugees Fear Landmines

After re-entering Thailand on Tuesday morning, three Karen refugee families who were recently deported from Thailand to Burma said they fear the landmines around their village of Ler Per Her in Karen State, Karen sources reported.

The Karen families were forcibly deported by Thai authorities on Feb. 5 despite heavy condemnation of Thai authorities by international and rights groups.

“They [the Karen refugees] are unhappy and dare not stay there. Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) authorities told them that they could go around their village but should not go far outside, and so they were afraid to go far beyond the village,” said Blooming Night Zan, a spokesperson for the Karen Women's Organization.

“We were always scared of…stepping on landmines,” one refugee told the Karen Community-Based Organization Emergency Relief Committee, a consortium of Karen health and human rights groups helping displaced villagers.

“If we were still living in our village we would be facing a terrible situation. We could lose our lives, be subjected to violence and used as forced labor,” one of the refugees said.

The refugees are currently staying in Nong Bua camp in Tha Song Yang District in Thailand's Tak province.

The Thai authorities planned to repatriate all 3,000 Karen refugees in Tha Song Yang District by Feb 15. However, they suspended the plan after being severely criticized.

Meanwhile, a group of an estimated 200 Burmese soldiers from Military Operation Command (11) fired about 20 mortars into the Karen village of Htee Moo Hta in Nyaunlebin District on Feb. 7, burning down about 20 villagers' houses and a mobile clinic belong to a Karen health group known as the Karen Department of Health, according to Saw Eh Kalu Shwe Oo, the deputy head of the health organization. 

The Burmese troops continued  to K'lee Mu Der village, where they burnt down another 20 houses, said Eh Kalu.  

Dr. Voravit Suwanvanichkij of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said the areas to which the refugees will be deported are very risky. Refugees would face health care problems, danger from landmines and human rights abuses by Burmese government and DKBA troops if they are sent there.

“It would be premature to send anybody back to Karen State right now,” said Suwanvanichkij.

Karen sources in the camp reported that the Thai army announced that the fighting in Karen State is over and refugees could return and stay safely in their villages. Many human rights groups disagreed, however.  

Meanwhile, Thai government ministries, the Thai Army, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) and community-based Karen rights groups will hold a meeting in Bangkok tomorrow over the repatriation of the Karen refugees in Tha Song Yang.

“We want to ask Thai authorities to help our Karen villagers until peace prevails in Karen State as they did in the past,” said Eh Kalu.