Angelina Jolie - support for Myanmar refugees in northern Thailand camp

Angelina Jolie voices support for Myanmar refugees in northern Thailand camps Feb.5

BAN MAI NAI SOI REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand, February 5 (UNHCR) UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie has called on the Thai government to grant Myanmar refugees in northern Thailand greater freedom of movement, after spending a day listening to refugees tell of the difficulties they have faced in two decades of living in closed camps.

"I was saddened to meet a 21-year-old woman who was born in a refugee camp, who has never even been out of the camp and is now raising her own child in a camp," Jolie said after her visit Wednesday to Ban Mai Nai Soi camp, home to 18,111 mainly Karenni registered refugees, just three kms from the Myanmar border, near Mae Hong Son.

"With no foreseeable chance that these refugees will soon be able to return to Burma (Myanmar), we must find some way to help them work and become self reliant," she said.

The 111,000 registered refugees who live in nine camps in northern Thailand along the Thai-Myanmar border are not allowed to venture outside the camps to work or receive higher education.

In a thatched two-room house on stilts, Jolie sat down on the floor and chatted with refugee Ma Pai, a 44-year-old minority ethnic Kayan woman who has applied for resettlement to the United States.

At a boarding school for orphans and children separated from their parents, Jolie listened attentively as two teenage girls sent across the border to the refugee camp by their parents for education told of their fears that they might have to go back to Myanmar when they finish their schooling.

"I hope we can work with the Thai authorities to speed up the government admissions process and that you will not be forced to go back to Burma if danger remains," Jolie said.

The Thai government's Provincial Admissions Board, the only body that can grant refugee status to people fleeing fighting or persecution in Myanmar, has yet to process some 5,000 people who arrived in Mae Hong Son province in 2006 and 2007, the last time there was significant fighting in Kayah State just across the border. Throughout last year, people continued to trickle into Ban Mai Nai Soi and three other camps in the province, mostly fleeing forced labour and other human rights abuses.

One 26-year-old woman, Pan Sein, told Jolie she fled her village in Kayah State last November, and took a circuitous, hazardous journey on foot that finally brought her to the camp at the beginning of January.

"Weren't you scared to leave your parents and come on your own?" Jolie asked.

"Yes, I was scared," Pan Sein replied. "It was dangerous to flee, but even more dangerous to stay in my village."

Jolie's visit came at a time of worldwide attention to the large numbers of Rohingya migrants fleeing Myanmar's northern Rakhine state in rickety boats, and just after UNHCR gained access to 78 Rohingya boat people in detention in Ranong in southern Thailand.

"Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores," Jolie said.

"I also hope the Rohingya situation stabilizes and their life in Myanmar improves so the people do not feel the desperate need to flee, especially considering how dangerous their journey has become," she added. "As with all people, they deserve to have their human rights respected."

By Kitty McKinsey
In Ban Mai Nai Soi Camp
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Angelina
• Jolie
• UNHCR
• Goodwill
• Ambassador
• Myanmar
• refugee
• cam
• Thailand
• support

[linletwin007]

I am so ashamed i mean i go to international school n all my friends look down on me they think i m not worth like them cuz i m burmese :(

[theinsandaraung]

man.. how much these english people know about rohingya that they saids rohingya want human right? they are trying to destroy our country more than wanting freedom. They shouldn't say this if they don;t know. Its really hurt someone feeling who know the truth

[theinsandaraung]

@ citizenOfNowhere777 Drama? Do you even know what is going on there? excuse me.. if you are not the owner of this video.. mind your own business.

[citizenOfNowhere777]

@linnhtetmaw Gee people, she was merely implying how the world knows Burma as an oppressed nation and as such fellow Int'l students who comes form upper o upper middle socio economic background from their respective country sees her as inferior due to the standard of Burma in Int'l arena.

[citizenOfNowhere777]

@theinsandaraung Do you know how much your words sound delusional xenophobia? They speak from facts and to speak facts, now one bothers about hurting feelings of a xenoophobic. So, enough with your drama.

[MyThantzin]

@linletwin007

every where in the world have the starving peoples, poor peoples and homeless peoples, not only in Myanmar. Even America, have poor and homeless peoples. Whatever and wherever country you come from, depends on you, good or bad. Our country is poor country because of stupid government and big corruption. Doesn't mean you have to be shame of it in others. But we still have good heritages and cultures of thousand years, that can not have in some other countries.

[irockchomom]

@linletwin007 then they're not counted as your "friends". burma's going to get democracy soon, don't worry

[TRUELOVERism]

Actually all of our citizens are so suffered, thanks jolie for ur humanity. May God Bless You always....

[TheNechhie]

i known the truth that our burmeses gorvement always perscuted the rural peoples. u known only at the city a bout the myanmar.how can we get the fucking freedom. I WANNA TO SAY TO ANGELINA JOLIE, THANKS A LOT SUPPORTING MYANMAR REFUGEES PEOPLE.... MAY THE LORD BLESS U......

[TheNechhie]

i known the truth that our burmeses gorvement always perscuted the rural peoples. u known only at the city a bout the myanmar.how can we get the fucking freedom. I WANNA TO SAY TO ANGELINA JOLIE, SUPPORTING MYANMAR REFUGEES PEOPLE.... MAY THE LORD BLESS U......

[Epaltin]

Thanks Julie for caring and transforming that cares into actions..

May God bless You..

[yallaharbebe]

Thank Million much Angelina for supporting the Burma refugees people....:)