Highly recommended. Well-organised site. In "list of sources used" are most of the main reports from 1995 bearing on IDPs (though the reports from 1995 to 1997 are missing - temporarily, one hopes) and more Burma pages updated June 2001. Go to the home page for links on IDPs, including the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.
Innerhalb Burmas, dem heutigen Myanmar, leben 2 Millionen Menschen auf der Flucht, Internally Displaced People (IDP) genannt. Auch viele Karen leben in den unzugänglichen Dschungelgebieten nahe der Grenze zu Thailand.
Finding Food in Fear/Living in Fear
Introduction for ‘one family’....
In February 2010, Burma Issues conducted a field trip inside Karen State to raise internally displaced persons’ (IDPs) awareness of the upcoming elections. While they were watching a video, the township where the IDPs were staying was attacked by the Burmese army. They had to flee into the jungle and our cameraman decided to follow.
Beginning 1999 up to March this year (2002), hundreds of thousands of Wa people, who had
impressed British travelers as 'exceedingly well-behaved, industrious, and estimable race', were
forcibly moved to border areas adjacent Thailand. The report is about them, why and how they were
uprooted, what happened to the native people where the Wa were forced to resettle and what the
reader can do to help both categories of victims..."
Important, timely and well-produced
document, complete with maps and photos.
Karen Internally Displaced Persons wonder when they will be able to go home...
"Sitting in his new bamboo hut in Ler Per Her camp for Internally Displaced Persons, located on the bank of Thailand’s Moei River near the border with Burma, Phar The Tai—a skinny, tough-looking man of 60 who used to hide in the jungles and mountains of Burma’s eastern Karen State—waits for the time when he can return home.
Abstract: In large parts of the world, forests remain the domain of the state in which the rights of forest-dependent
peoples are denied or insecure. E fforts to restore justice to, and alleviate the poverty of, these marginalized
communities have often focused on tenurial reforms. S ometimes those reforms have led to important improvements
in livelihoods, mainly by stabilizing communities’ land use systems and by giving them greater
security. H owever, these improvements have not prevented communities from suffering other forms of
...The report pin points the dismal conditions for the Karen people throughout
the district, but the desperate situation of specific group in worst hit areas. It
was always the intention to build on the BERG report, Forgotten Victims of a
Hidden War: Internally Displaced Karen in Burma, published in 1998, which
provided the background and general description of the displacement of the
Karen in Kawthoolei. The Mu Traw report has been the first attempt by the
CIDKP to provide more detailed information focussing on a single district. It is
Burma/Myanmar has suffered
from two decades of mine
warfare by both the State Peace
and Development Council and
ethnic-based insurgents. There
are no humanitarian demining
programmes within the country.
It is no surprise that those states
in Burma/Myanmar with the most
mine pollution are the highest
IDP- and refugee-producing
states. Antipersonnel mines
planted by both government
forces and ethnic armed groups
injure and kill not only enemy
combatants but also their own
#039;"Welcome to our new Kachin townships," the camp administrator said sarcastically as he guided us down the muddy path leading to one of the dozens of refugee camps scattered through Kachin, the thin sliver of land which forms Burma's northernmost region. Makeshift shelters constructed from canvas and bamboo are now home for thousands of internally displaced people.
The United Nations refugee agency say there are more than 50,000 displaced people here, the Kachin put the figure much higher...
Executive Summary:
"Worsening conflict and abuses by Burmese government troops in
northern Shan State have displaced over 2,000 Palaung villagers from
fifteen villages in three townships since March 2011. About 1,000,
mainly women and children, remain in three IDP settlements in Mantong
and Namkham townships, facing serious shortages of food and medicine;
most of the rest have dispersed to find work in China.
Burmese troops have been launching offensives to crush the Kachin
This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during April 2011 in Tantabin Township, Toungoo District by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The community member interviewed a 37 year-old township secretary, Saw H---, who described abuses committed by several Tatmadaw battalions, including forced relocation, land confiscation, forced labour, restrictions on freedom of movement, denial of humanitarian access, targeting civilians, and arbitrary taxes and demands.
Despite a number of peace talks having been conducted between the central government and Kachin Independence Army (KIA), there is no sign of the war ceasing in Kachin state. The ongoing armed conflict has been driving thousands of civilians out of their villages. Many IDPs are now living in church supported camps along with relief from international humanitarian agencies. IDPs living in crowded camps with limited support face various obstacles as they cannot practice their livelihood anymore.