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Catholic refugees slowly dribble back to Myanmar's Kayah

Older refugees from Thai camps are finally returning but the young want to stay in the neighboring nation they call home
Catholic refugees slowly dribble back to Myanmar's Kayah

Ethnic women applaud as they listen to a speech by National League for Democracy chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi at an election campaign rally in Hpruso in Myanmar's Kayah State in September 2015. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP)

Published: June 28, 2018 05:31 AM GMT
Updated: July 03, 2018 10:12 AM GMT

For Ru Mo, there was no other option except to return to Myanmar's Kayah State after living for a decade in a refugee camp over the Thai border.

The urgent need to take care of her aging parents prompted her family to leave the camp in 2016.

"Finally, we decided to go back home with the prospect of finding jobs and education for our children in Kayah," the 34-year-old Catholic mother of four told ucanews.com.

It's a common theme as Karennis — the name given to the ethnic group which dominates Kayah, a sparsely populated mountainous state with stunning scenery about halfway down Myanmar's long eastern border with Thailand — begin to drift back from the camps.

Kayah is home to just 300,000 people, with Christians and Buddhists each making up 48 percent of the population; it is the only state in Myanmar where Catholics outnumber Protestants.

Another Catholic former refugee, Magdalena Htar Ru Mo, returned to Kayah in April 2017 after her elderly parents asked her to leave the camp to take care of them. "We had no choice and decided to go back home," she told ucanews.com.

Her family fled a village in Hpruso township in 2007 after clashes between Myanmar's military and the Karenni Army erupted near her village.

The 28-year-old mother of three is happy to be back home. "I will try my best for our future despite struggling for daily survival," said Htar Ru, who stays at the home of relatives in Demoso, a small, pretty mountain town near Loikaw, the Kayah capital.

Another factor persuading refugees to leave camps was a shortfall in international funding since political and economic reforms started in Myanmar in 2011, resulting in the nation's first democratic election in 2015.

"We received 15 kilograms of rice per person per month in the past but that was later reduced to just 9 kilograms," Ru Mo said.

After they moved to live with relatives in Demoso, Ru Mo's husband has worked as a daily worker for hire, doing mainly farming work to make ends meet.

"We are happy to be back home but we are still struggling for our daily survival as there are no employment opportunities," said Ru Mo.

Her family fled to Thailand in 2006 as they were afraid of being arrested by the military over alleged ties to the Karenni Army. Ru Mo had to cook food and send it to the armed group but other villagers misunderstood her help.

"We were trembling with fear that we would be arrested, so we decided to flee the village," said Ru Mo, who lived in Predo village in Phruso township.

On their way to the border, they encountered other fleeing families but nobody knew which direction to take. "We met a Karenni armed group and they showed us how to get over the border," Ru Mo said.

In Thailand, about 20,000 Karenni refugees stay at the Ban Mai Nai Soi camp in Mae Hong Son, while another 4,000 are in Ban Mae Surin, a small, remote camp.

People began to flee Kayah in 1992 after it had been devastated by years of ethnic conflict between Myanmar's military and the Karenni Army, the armed branch of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP).

A total of 306 refugees have returned to townships in Kayah such as Demoso, Hpasawng and Loikaw, according to a UNHCR report on May 1. The refugee agency has been piloting a system to assess returns to southeast Myanmar since 2012.

The first voluntary repatriation of 68 Myanmar refugees organized by the UNHCR began in October 2016, while the second batch of 93 refugees including Karennis returned to Myanmar in May 2018.

Repatriation programs have increased as Myanmar has moved to a more democratic government since Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) took office in 2016 after formally ending decades-long military rule. The NLD is forced to share power with the military, which still controls defense, border affairs and home affairs including the police.

But observers say Myanmar is not yet ready for large-scale repatriation because of sporadic clashes in ethnic areas and a lack of infrastructure development, schools and healthcare services.

In Kayah, a remote and underdeveloped region, there have been no more clashes since the KNPP signed a ceasefire deal in March 2012, yet there remain few employment opportunities and the region is still lacking sufficient schools and hospitals.

 

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