Thai government urged to halt repatriation of Karen refugees

The Karen Women’s Organization has appealed to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate over 3,000 Karen refugees staying in Tha Song Yang, Tak Province, back to a heavily mined war zone in Burma. The group of refugees is sheltered in Thailand since last June after they fled fighting between the Burmese Army and an ethnic armed group in the Ler Per Her area in Karen State, Burma.

“The refugees were told by the Thai Army that they must return to Burma by February 15 and that action to send them back will begin on February 5. They are now living in fear of imminent repatriation into an area which is heavily mined, and where conflict can be triggered again any moment,” according to the statement from the group released on Thursday.

KWO also mentioned that the majority of the refugees are women and children.

The KWO said that on January 28, the local authorities and the Thai Army forced 50 refugees from this group back across the border between 9 am and 11 am to start cleaning up their homes in  Ler Per Her village in preparation for their return. They included 20 women and girls, some less than 16 years of age.  

“However, KWO would like to state clearly that this area is not safe at all and refugee groups are not willing to return at this point in time. In recent months, five refugees from the area have been either maimed or killed by landmines when slipping back into Burma to look after livestock they left behind. This included a 13-year-old boy whose leg was blown off in August last year, and a woman, who was eight months pregnant, had her foot blown off on January 18, 2010,” the release added.