Life as a refugee has dealt Hsaw Reh many blows. His education was pitiful, alcohol abuse is rife in his community, and the 22-year-old says he feels like a zoo animal, trapped in an overcrowded camp on the Thai-Myanmar border. Nevertheless, in the 13 years since he fled Myanmar and came to Thailand, concerns about hunger and starvation have not crossed Hsaw Reh's mind.
That could soon change, aid groups worry, as global rice, food and oil prices hit record highs and donor nations turn their attention away from the camps and to the relief effort after Myanmar's devastating Cyclone Nargis. "The price of rice is very high. I see some of the families have a shortage," says Hsaw Reh, who has sneaked out of his refugee camp for the day and travelled to the nearby north-western Thai town of Mae Hong Son.
If the refugees do not get rice, he said, "maybe we would starve". The plight of the world's persecuted was highlighted on the United Nations World Refugee Day, but many fear the long-running crisis on the Thai-Myanmar border is being forgotten.
Food for the refugees is provided by relief agency TBBC, the Thai Burma Border Consortium, which relies on donations from governments but is this year facing a shortfall of 3.5 million dollars. "Here in Thailand, the rice price more than doubled in the first three months of the year, so that added over seven million dollars to our budget," says Sally Thompson, TBBC's deputy executive director.
If funding is not forthcoming by October, the organisation will be forced to halve rations for about 140,000 refugees who have fled fighting over the last 20 years in military-run Myanmar and live in camps stringing the Thai border.
"We currently provide the minimal daily requirements, so if we halve the rations they are effectively getting half their daily requirements. We would definitely see an increase in malnourishment," Thompson says. The cyclone in south-west Myanmar in early May, which left 2.4 million people in need of aid and destroyed key rice producing areas, could also take a toll as donors rush to provide funds for survivors, sidelining the camps, she says.
-- Cyclone diverting attention, and aid, from refugee camps -- "It is quite difficult to focus their attention back on the refugee situation that has been ongoing for so many years," says Thompson, adding that the disaster could also send more people fleeing hardship and into Thailand.
Hsaw Reh was nine years old when he left his parents and his home village and followed a group of rebels from the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) across the gushing Salween River and into Thailand. Myanmar is one of the most ethnically-diverse countries in the world, and civil war wracked the country after independence in 1948.
Most rebel groups have now reached cease-fires with the junta, but a handful including the KNPP still battle the regime, which responds by targeting civilians, burning villages, raping women, and forcing people to work as army porters, human rights groups say.
"They came to our village and robbed the live chickens, pigs, whatever they wanted. They called for porters. My father was sometimes sent away for weeks," says Hsaw Reh. "We didn't have a chance to go to school -- the military troops came to our village and destroyed our homes."
Hsaw Reh got a chance to finish basic subjects in high school in a refugee camp in Thailand, but his prospects for the future are bleak. Refugees are not allowed to study and work in Thailand or leave the camps. The sense of desperation and boredom turns many people to drink and drugs, with alcoholism and domestic abuse blighting the refugee communities.
"It's like a zoo, it's very depressing to live in the camp. We can't go where we want to go, we can't do what we want to do," Hsaw Reh says. The UN runs resettlement programmes to North America, Australia and Europe, but in reality that means the refugees have to give up hope of ever returning home, a prospect many are not willing to consider.
"Donors are downscaling their funding through a misguided view that resettlement to third countries is reducing the refugee population, which is not true," says David Mathieson, a Myanmar specialist with the US-based Human Rights Watch. "There is still fighting and repression, so there are still refugees fleeing across borders who need to be housed, fed and protected."
Rice prices have fallen slightly, but Targay, assistant editor of the Kantarawaddy Times which publishes for the Myanmar community around Mae Hong Son, says short-term solutions such as doling out food are not enough. "The Thai authorities should allow these refugees to work outside the camp so they can stand on their own feet," says Targay, who uses one name only.
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