Border between Thailand and Myanmar – In May, a group of families from Myanmar gathered in their property to celebrate the start of the rainy season as a thunderstorm blew across a border town in Thailand. Children raced around until their clothing were soaked, while men chewed betel and drank tea from the porch. A woman in a sarong brought out shampoo and bathed her hair.
It was a brief respite for the family, who are all refugees, though they appreciated the time away from the oppressive heat.Politicians, community organizers, governmental workers who refused to serve under the military regime, and regular residents drawn into the pro-democracy movement all came from quite different backgrounds. Their tales are similar in that they all fled their homes after the military coup in February of last year, entered Thailand illegally, and then made a request for humanitarian protection from the UNHCR.
They are among the 288 Myanmar refugees that the UNHCR in Thailand has referred for resettlement consideration to governments of third countries since the start of 2021 because they are unable to safely return to Myanmar or remain legally in Thailand, which does not recognize refugees living outside of camps. This figure may possibly include those who fled previous waves of persecution and bloodshed by entering Thailand prior to the coup.
There is no established time frame for the resettlement screening procedure, and some of the families Al Jazeera spoke to indicated that they started the procedure more than a year ago. Due of their undocumented status, they hardly ever leave the boundaries of their enclave as they wait.
They have fostered enduring connections as they observe the seasons changing side by side, lamenting the things they had to leave behind and looking forward to the future.
A Baptist minister from Myanmar's Karen ethnic group named Saw Htoo remarked, "We got here, met one other, and created a community. We have common ground, which makes it simpler for us to address our issues.
He and the other refugees mentioned in this article have been given fictitious names, and their whereabouts have been kept secret for security concerns.urban migrants
Since seizing control of the government in Myanmar 17 months ago, the military has made an effort to eradicate dissent and crush popular opposition to its authority. While the military has reacted to the escalating armed resistance movement by targeting neighborhoods with bombings, artillery fire, and arson, soldiers and police have shot and killed hundreds of nonviolent protestors.
According to a UN monthly humanitarian update released in June, 40,000 people crossed into India and 758,000 people have left their homes since the coup. Nearly 800,000 people have fled their homes overall.In response to inquiries through email, Morgane Roussel-Hemery of the UNHCR's Thailand office informed Al Jazeera that as of June 22, the Thai government had no knowledge of any refugees from Myanmar residing on the Thai side of the border. The report makes no mention of refugees in Thailand.
She continued by saying that the Thai government was in charge of the nation's reaction to migrants at the border. In March of last year, the Thai government set standard operating procedures stating that all refugees were to be placed in "temporary safe locations" under Thai army control.
Roussel-Hemery, once more citing the Thai government, stated that although though 20,000 people had been living in these locations as of June 22, every single one of them had returned to Myanmar "when the violence apparently subsided". She told Al Jazeera that the UNHCR had not been given permission to assess the need for protection before returning refugees.
Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights, among other rights organizations, have claimed that Thai officials have occasionally turned away Myanmar refugees and prevented them from crossing the border; the Thai government has refuted these allegations.
Since intense combat broke out between the military and armed resistance groups close to the Thailand border during the final week of June, the situation has gotten worse. Since then, aerial attacks by Myanmar armed forces have routinely targeted the region, killing both combatants and civilians
The Thai government counted 1,429 persons from Myanmar who had fled to Thailand between June 29 and July 4, of whom 802 remained in "temporary safe places," according to Roussel-Hemery of the UNHCR, who spoke to Al Jazeera.
The UNHCR denied to provide information to Al Jazeera regarding the number of "urban refugees," or those living outside of camps, stating that the state should be primarily responsible for their safety."Disassembling a raft"
However, they continue to live in a hazardous condition because the Thai government does not recognize or count urban refugees. Three of them were interviewed by Al Jazeera about their travel motivations and how they are coping with their present circumstances while awaiting for relocation.
One of them is Thida, who in the weeks following the coup joined the throngs of demonstrators in Yangon with her husband. By May, she and her husband had fled into hiding out of fear of being arrested. The couple made the decision to leave the country in October, at which time Thida was eight months pregnant.
Before entering Thailand in the pouring rain with their possessions on their backs, they spent a week hiding in a village close to the border. "I kept falling, and it was quite challenging. My baby's survival is such a blessing, thought Thida. When I first arrived here, I was so relieved that I broke down in tears because I knew I wouldn't pass away.
The time to leave his home arrived last March for Saw Htoo. After the military started detaining those who joined the strikes, his wife, a hospital administrator in Mandalay, was one of the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who had refused to work under the military regime. The couple made the decision to leave the city with their young daughter to avoid being detained by the military.
They progressively moved more than 800 kilometers (497 miles) southeast over the course of the following eight months in quest of safety and a location where their daughter could attend school. In November, they sold their goods and entered Thailand. Saw Htoo stated, "We abandoned everything in Burma and fled." A Burmese proverb refers to it as "dismantling a raft."
Before relocating to their current residence, they spent almost four months hiding out in tight quarters with other families. We had relocated six or seven times by that point, and we were about to lose our minds, he added. When we were moving from one place to another, "[my daughter] always inquired when we had to move again."
Now, his daughter spends her time playing with the other kids in the property, including Ko Ko's daughter, or in the room she shares with her parents. Ko Ko was a well-known member of the Muslim community in Myanmar and a campaigner for social harmony between Muslims and Buddhists. She also ran an internet news site covering topics affecting Myanmar Muslims. Within days of the coup, he shut it down, although he was aware that he wasn't secure. Ko Ko, a native of Naypyidaw, said, "I was always expecting someone to come and knock on the door to arrest me."
But it was his brother, a lecturer at a university, who got into difficulty first. The two brothers chose to flee to Thailand after the military filed an arrest warrant for him in May because he refused to submit to its rule. Ko Ko remarked, "I assumed this [regime] would be over in a month or two. I believed that once the military was overthrown, I could return home and continue working.
Three months later, however, the brothers brought their parents, spouses, and four young children over as a result of the situation in Myanmar continuing to deteriorate. Before being reunited with the two brothers, the families had to endure a challenging voyage that included camping in tarpaulin tents in the rain, wading through the waist-deep Moei river at night, and traveling through muddy hills and farms.
When it rains, kids typically cry, but Ko Ko's baby was so terrified that she didn't cry. Ko Ko's daughter was only a few months old at the time. His father, on the other hand, is in his 70s and walks with a cane. He said, "My father told me that he had never gone through anything like that in his entire life.We're a family.
The families have engaged in a variety of activities to pass the time since they started the resettlement screening process. They exercise and stroll in circles before daybreak, and at dusk, they play the Burmese traditional games of badminton and chinlone. In preparation for the coming winters of snow and ice, women work on crocheting scarves and caps during the day, while Saw Htoo teaches his daughter and the children of his neighbors fundamental English and math concepts while teaching them how to count nickels and dimes. I'm doing my best to teach the kids, but I don't have any teaching experience, and I don't know the methods," he remarked.
Despite having little money, Ko Ko and his family frequently prepare meals to share with the other households. "I made the decision to assist others here in whatever way I could. It feels like we are family now, he remarked. We are all living the same life even if we are of diverse racial and religious backgrounds and origins.
But according to him and other interviewees, they are plagued by grief, survivor's guilt, and worry. Following hostilities in March in the northwest Myanmar district of Sagaing between military forces and local resistance organizations, military forces set hundreds of homes on fire, forcing Thida's parents to flee to Yangon. I will be safe once I go there [to a third nation], but my parents are left behind, she claimed. "I can't even imagine what will happen to them at this point."
Saw Htoo concerns about his daughter, who hasn't attended school in more than two years, and his wife, who is currently expecting. We can't plan for tomorrow since we don't know when we'll be resettled, he said. "We don't have a fallback strategy. A refugee is sometimes merely a refugee.
His Christian religion and the Biblical account of the Israelites' flight from Egypt serve as coping mechanisms for him. "Lead us in thy will," he murmured in a simple prayer to God. "[The Israelites] traveled for 40 years to the land of milk and honey, eating manna from the sky every day in the process. I currently have that impression.
Ko Ko gets inspiration from his Muslim faith and concentrates on providing his kids the chances he was never given. I am not thinking of myself; I am only thinking of my children because two-thirds of my life have already passed, he remarked. "I hope that my children will succeed where I failed and realize their full potential. When I travel to a third country, that is what I aim to achieve.
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