Donor Cuts to Refugees Food, Medicine, Health and Education Services Is Driving Camp to Drug Abuse and Suicide

[many] the challenges in the [refugee] camp. As the situation continues to become harder and difficult. The refugees are suffering more compare to in the past because the conflicts within the camp are continuously increasing – it has become a challenges for the refugees.

The conflicts, come in many different ways. There are many issues. At the moment, the challenges in the camp are based on the food rations which have been reduced. In the past, we always got and had full rations. Now, the rations have been reduced more than ever. Another issue is that the salaries of the staff’s members of the camp were reduced. Rations are provided by TBC (The Border Consortium). We also know, the organization that reduce the rations is TBC. It happens because they are responsible for our rations. For the rations cut-off, we do not know the reasons, but we think the reason is that they want our Karen people not be able to live here, so they reduce our rations. If we cannot continue to live here, eventually we will return. Literally, they want to force us to return and go away. I feel like they have found the way for us to return.

“We Can’t Feed our Kids…”

At this time, if we look at the households, they are not only faced with the problem with food rations, some households face a huge challenge of insufficient foods and some children are malnourished. For the households that do not have sufficient food, they have to find work outside of the camp. They have difficulties finding work. For working outside of the camp, they work as day laborer harvesting corn and growing tapioca trees. As we are refugees, we do not have rights to go and work outside the camp. However, we [have no choice] have to go and find work because the food we get is not enough. When we go out and find work, we have to go secretly. If we get caught, we are arrested and have to pay the fine. The rules in the camp, if you get caught, your rations will be cut-off. Currently, the punishment has been enforced. If you get caught, you will be punished by doing volunteer community’s service.

The main root of the challenge is because of insufficient food, but it has resulted in other challenges. Some households have too many children and their children are small babies. If your children are an infant and you do not have sufficient foods, it’s already become a really big problem.

If We Needed Funds Yesterday, We Still Need Them Today, But International Donors Have Stop Funding Us

I think, if the top level donors do not reduce or cut-off the support, the lower level [funders] will not cut-off the support. Currently, the situation related to education, both the students and teachers have a hard time. It’s become a big challenge for teachers and the people who cooperate with schools because they [funders] reduced the pocket money (salary) in every sector. For the students who attend the school, the school fees have increased more and more. It’s a challenge for them.

It was the donors, because they are the people who manage the support, everything is in their hands deciding to provide or stop the support. When they stopped it like that, it becomes a problem for the refugees in every sector. For the education sector, it has really hurt because of their actions. We are Karen people, we help and assist each other as much as we can. Education is really important because young people who finished their study in the camp, they could not continue their study in other areas.

Click on the image below to watch the video on Vimeo.

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This video originally appeared on Karen News Vimeo in September, 2017.