Only 3.4 % of Myanmar refugees in Thailand return home in 2013

Only 3.4 % of Myanmar refugees in Thailand return home in 2013



BANGKOK: -- A small percentage of Myanmar refugees living in camps on the Thai border returned to their homeland in 2013, a consortium of NGOs says.

Of 128,200 refugees living in nine camps in Thailand in December 2012, only 3.4 percent returned to Myanmar last year, compared with 6 percent who resettled to third countries, according to new population data published by The Border Consortium (TBC).

“These figures show us that refugees are not leaving the camps and returning to Myanmar en masse,” TBC executive director Sally Thompson, said in a statement Monday. “It appears that the majority of those returning are going back on a ‘look and see’ basis.”

Last year 4,389 refugees in the camps returned to Myanmar. Of these departures, a majority included just one or two people from a household, with other family members staying behind in the camps, TBC said.

By comparison, at least 7,649 people moved to third countries under the resettlement program of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), it said, adding that the figure could be higher as year-end data from the International Organization for Migration was still pending. According to UNHCR, over 7,000 of those people were resettled to the United States, while others went to Australia, Finland, New Zealand and Canada.

Last month a group resettlement programme to the United States came to a close. Since 2005 the program has helped over 73,000 Burmese refugees move from the Thai camps to the United States.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/3-4-myanmar-refugees-thailand-return-home-2013/


-- Thai PBS 2014-02-05