First Myanmar refugees from Thai camps move to US under new resettlement program

Bangkok — The first group of refugees from Myanmar living in Thailand and eligible for a new resettlement program flew out of Bangkok for the United States last week, more than a year after the plan was first announced, U.S. and U.N. officials have told VOA.

Some 90,000 refugees now live in nine sealed-off camps inside Thailand along the country’s border with Myanmar, driven from their homes by decades of fighting between the Myanmar military and a number of ethnic minority armed groups vying for autonomy.

Some have called the camps home since the 1980s, put off from returning to Myanmar by the ongoing fighting and mostly barred by the Thai government from legally and permanently settling in Thailand. Most of the refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, are ethnic Karen.

Hoping to give them a viable way out, Thailand, the U.S. government and the UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, announced a new resettlement program in May 2023, allowing registered refugees in the camps to move to the United States.

“The first group left Thailand for the United States last week,” a U.S. Embassy official in Bangkok told VOA on Tuesday.

“Resettlement operations are ongoing in cooperation with the UNHCR and the Royal Thai government,” the official said. “The United States appreciates what Thailand has done to facilitate assistance.”

The Thailand office of the UNHCR said the group of 25 left the country on Thursday.

Photos posted online by the head of the UNHCR’s Thailand office, Tammi Sharpe, show Thai and U.N. officials at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to see the group off.

“The value of the program could be felt,” she wrote. “Wishing those who will be on the receiving end my appreciation in advance.”

Aid groups working in the camps welcomed the start of resettlement.

“We are happy for these people because these people have been waiting to go to resettle for a long time, because along the Thai-Burma border … resettlement has been closed for many years,” Khyaw Paw, who chairs the Karen Women’s Organization, told VOA.

A previous resettlement program saw some 100,000 refugees from the camps resettled abroad between 2005 and 2015, according to the UNHCR, most of them in the U.S.

Democratic reforms that started in Myanmar in 2011 had raised hopes that most of the refugees could eventually return home. But a military coup in 2021 set off a full-scale civil war and has dashed those goals for the time being.

“They are not able to go home, and Thailand has not opened up integration within the country, so for many of the refugees who have been here for a long time, it’s a good opportunity,” Khyaw Paw said of the new program.

Refugee advocates say resettlement also can offer relief from what they describe as deteriorating conditions in the camps.

'Growing sense of despair'

The Karen Women’s Organization says a growing sense of despair among the refugees over their future has been driving up everything from drug use to domestic abuse, gang violence and suicide.

Refugees are not allowed to work or study outside the camps, and they have told VOA of having meager schooling and job opportunities inside. They have little chance to earn a living on their own and must survive on an average of about $9 in food aid per person each month.

Some four decades after the first of the camps was established, most homes still lack running water or electricity and are little more than huts with bamboo walls and thatched roofs.

“The quality of life is very, very bad in my opinion, and I think if they have a chance [to resettle], I think it will be better for them. When I’m talking about the quality of life, I’m talking about health care, I’m talking about … education, I’m talking about crime,” said Rangsiman Rome, a lawmaker for Thailand’s opposition Move Forward Party.

As chair of the House of Representatives’ border affairs committee, he visited some of the camps a few months ago.

“I know the government tries to do good,” he said. “The problem is they don’t have freedom to go anywhere, so for me it’s abuse of human rights and … it’s better that they should have a quality of life better than this.”

Neither the U.S. Embassy nor the UNHCR would say how many of the roughly 90,000 refugees registered in the camps might ultimately be allowed to move abroad as part of the new resettlement program, or at what pace.

Khyaw Paw and Rangsiman both said UNHCR staff told them in meetings in late 2023 that up to 10,000 could be resettled per year. The UNHCR did not reply to a VOA request to confirm or deny the figure.

In any case, refugee advocates suspect the ultimate number resettled per year will be far less and that the refugees also need other options. They would like to see the Thai government let the refugees legally study, work and ultimately settle permanently in Thailand outside of the camps.

Rangsiman said some refugees looking for a permanent home outside of Myanmar may prefer to settle nearby to avoid the culture shock of moving farther afield, and that Thailand, which for the first time recorded more deaths than births in 2023, could use their labor.

“They have a lot of potential, and in Thailand we are an aging society, and we need human resource for our economy,” he said.

“There’s no need to just relocate them to the U.S.; it [Thailand] could be a choice for them,” he added.

Rangsiman said talks with the government were under way on proposals to resume Thai language courses in the camps, where most instruction now is in Burmese and Karen. He said teaching the refugees to speak Thai, as well, would help them transition to higher education and jobs outside the camps, if someday allowed, and to possibly settle in Thailand for good.

Khyaw Paw has voiced hope the refugees will get more rights to study and work outside the camps.

“If we compare [with] the last parliament, no one talked about refugees,” she said. “So, I think there is progress.”