Daniel Pedersen

The misery of an unfortunate birthplace

Dan Pedersen

July 30, 2009

More than 200 people are living in pitiful conditions at the Safe Haven Orphanage on the Thai-Burma border.

About three quarters of them are newly-arrived refugees forced across the border by a rapacious campaign of forced recruitment into the armed forces of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, allies of Burma’s ruling military junta.

Most of them are children.

They live under thin plastic sheeting suspended over festering mud puddles alive with mosquitoes and larvae.

Until recently many of the children were suffering from malaria, but the Thai Public Health Ministry treated them.
But that does not stop new infections.

Water for the settlement is drawn from the Moei River, just below its confluence with the Salween River.

Both rivers are churning after two weeks of almost continuous rain and with no chemical treatment or filtering process for drinking water, the children are falling foul of all manner of ailments.

“One little girl has worms in her brain,” said an exasperated 25-year-old Brazilian woman who volunteered to teach English when she saw the already-poor conditions the children were enduring.

And that was before more than 150 more turned up.

Natcha Kehapeerasit, the displaced former principal of a school in Burma’s Karen State, is heavily pregnant but continues teaching her pupils who have come with her across the river.

“We have made a new school,” she says rubbing her belly as rain streams off the thatch roof of her tiny new home and gesturing to some bamboo poles holding up sheets of blue and white striped plastic.

Natcha says the children will likely call this place home until March 2010, when another school year ends.

Asked what is needed she replies simply: “Food, something to write with and notebooks.”

There is no mention of qualified teachers or extra clothing and the food requirements she reels off are simply rice, fish paste, salt and dried chillies, “because Karen people, they love chillies very much”.

What about sugar?

“No we don’t need sugar,” says Natcha firmly, “we have no need for it”.

There is no spare ground at the orphanage – rocks that jut from the earth and are too big to dig up take up the only space not occupied by people.

There is a narrow access track that winds through the rock outcrops.

It is in surprisingly good condition, but only because the myriad non-governmental organisations operating out of the nearest major town, Mae Sot, don’t come here.

“The Thailand-Burma Border Consortium gave us some of the plastic sheets,” said the Brazilian teacher, who washes in the river along with everyone else.

“But we haven’t seen UNHCR or anyone else like that, they just don’t come.”

About 45 minutes’ drive south, NGO 4WD vehicles adorned with logos from agencies the world over buzz in and out of Mae La refugee camp, delivering supplies and tending their particular projects.

Many refuse to cooperate with others when it comes to coordinating delivery of aid, insisting on delivering it personally.

The end result of such recalcitrance is duplication in some instances, while the children at Safe Haven Orphanage sleep with the mosquitoes, don’t have enough to eat and drink muddy water.

Money is urgently needed to buy food and essential items for basic living.
This is an open appeal to anyone who can afford to help these people, victims of an ongoing campaign of genocide to force them from their home country.

ENDS