By Claire Truscott – 3 days ago
THA SONG YANG, Thailand (AFP) — A sudden offensive against ethnic Karen rebels by Myanmar's military junta has caused what aid groups say is the biggest exodus of refugees from Myanmar since 1997, with some 4,000 people fleeing for safety since the start of June.
Just weeks ago the group of 96 destitute orphans fled their children's home in Myanmar to the sound of mortar shells and crossed into Thailand.
With camps in Thailand already home to 135,000 refugees from the six-decade conflict between mainly-Buddhist Myanmar's junta and the Christian Karen, soldiers bundled the new arrivals into the Safe Haven orphanage in this frontier village.
Thai orphanage boss Tasanee Keereepraneed watches over children from Myanmar tending to toddlers not much younger than themselves -- refugees from one of the world's longest conflicts.
But Tasanee, 49, the orphanage's self-styled "Big Mama", readily took them on along with a separate group of displaced families who are being provided with food and medicine by local aid groups.
"The children look after each other and take care of themselves. The older ones teach the younger ones," says Tasanee. "They have to grow up very quickly."
The teenagers smear white powder on younger faces for protection against the hot sun, before cosseting them under a huge tarpaulin tent. Soon the clouds gather and intense seasonal rain beats down.
Listless children sleep to pass the time, while others sit mending broken toys or try to play marbles on the sodden earth next to the Moei river, in the shadow of soaring limestone cliffs and dense foliage.
"They do not have a school, they do not have a place to stay because they had to run from the attacks," says Tasanee.
With no parents to take care of them, only a handful of teachers -- none older than 22 themselves -- were left to brighten the mood with a guitar and a few traditional Karen songs.
The long war between the Karen National Liberation Army and the Myanmar military, backed by Karen defectors paid off by the regime, may finally be headed for its endgame.
Myanmar government forces have taken new territory in Pa-an district and the Ler Her Per camp in Myanmar for the internally displaced, as the rebels fight with inferior weaponry and manpower using landmines and ambushes.
Families fleeing the recent fighting have ended up at seven makeshift camp sites in Thailand, one of which is the Mae Usu village close by the orphanage.
There, 1,100 people are gathered at the side of a muddy path. Men hurriedly cut bamboo poles with machetes to erect temporary homes that will provide little protection from the wet season.
A 32-year-old mother-of-two who goes by just one name, Malay, sits in a bamboo hut breastfeeding her baby while her blind mother-in-law rocks over a hot stove of water behind her.
"It was very difficult coming because I can only carry the baby and my husband carried his mother. We had no food to bring with us because we couldn't carry it," she said.
But they would rather be here than at home where the men say they are regularly forced to work for the state army as minesweepers and porters -- protecting soldiers from landmines in their path and carrying their food and ammunition.
A 40-year-old farmer, Mgheh, travelled with his four children, aged six to 14, and is sharing the shelter with Malay.
"We left because we were forced to work and we heard the sound of the fighting around my village. When it's safe we'll go back but I don't know when. Right now we'll just stay right here," he said.
Women face equal horrors in Myanmar, where in early June local aid groups said two teenage girls -- one carrying her unborn child -- were raped and killed by government troops.
Analysts say the timing of the latest violence is aimed at ridding the border of the last vestiges of rebel activity before the junta holds national elections next year, having made peace pacts with some 27 other ethnic groups.
But these wandering families told AFP they want nothing of politics, and seek only a peaceful return to village life.
"I just heard the noise and saw them (soldiers) by my own eyes... I heard they are taking over all the villages and I don't understand any of it... I'm only a simple farmer," said 46-year-old Soe Bohhto.
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