Aid Workers Call for Millions in Donations for Fire-Ravaged Burma Refugee Camp

Survivors carry aid and belongings salvaged from ruins of the Mae Surin refugee camp near Mae Hong Son on Sunday. (Photo: Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha)

More than 2,300 refugees who became homeless when fire destroyed their shelters in Mae Surin refugee camp, in Thailand’s Mae Hong Son Province, have received immediate assistance but need supplies to rebuild their homes.

The fire that broke out in the isolated refugee camp on Friday destroyed about 400 houses made of bamboo, wood, and roofed with dried leaves, before it was brought under control on Saturday.

On Monday, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium put out a call for 13 million Thai baht (US $444,000) in donations to rebuild the camp.

The blaze—reportedly caused by a cooking accident—killed at least 35 people and injured dozens more.

A Karenni schoolgirl, Eliza, a volunteer delivering aid to the victims, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that some 36 people died in the blaze.

An estimated 400 houses were reduced to ash. The more than 2,000 refugees made homeless are sheltering in accommodation set up by the Thailand Border Consortium and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Eliza said that the fire spread quickly because it was hot and windy in the camp.

The fire trapped the victims and encircled them.

Located in an isolated region, there are no modern fire extinguishers in the camp. Residents normally use buckets of water and sand to put out any fires.

Vivian Tan, the spokesperson for the UNHCR in Asia, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that her organization has provided immediate assistance, such as blankets and plastic sheeting for temporary shelters to the victims.

“For now, the focus is the immediate assistance. In the medium term, this camp is run by the [Thai] government. So I think the government will probably do some kind of planning of how to rebuild the shelters,” said Vivian Tan.

Mae Surin refugee camp housed about 3,500 refugees who fled from Burmese government military offensives in Karenni State, eastern Burma. Mae Surin is one of nine Burmese refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border.

According to the UNHCR report, a local clinic and distribution center at the camp were also razed in the blaze. With the cooperation of Thai authorities and local camp committee leaders, the International Rescue Committee and International Committee of the Red Cross has also offered assistance for the victims.

Sally Thompson, the director of the Thailand Border Consortium, a humanitarian agency said: “At the moment, they have plastic sheeting, mosquito nets, and mats. The immediate assistance is sufficient. But, they will need assistance for reconstructing [their homes].”

“We will need to provide all construction materials again … everything to reconstruct new houses.

“Before that assistance is provided, the debris in the burnt areas will be cleared where the new buildings will be built,” said Thompson.

According to the Bangkok Post, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked the Interior Ministry, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department and the armed forces to set up an emergency center to ensure sufficient food, drinking water, medicine and clothing will be supplied to the refugees.

Deputy Interior Minister Chatt Kuldiloke and ministry officials also visited the camp on Saturday to oversee the establishment of temporary shelters and the provision of medical treatment.

There are about 150,000 refugees who live in the nine refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. Most of them are ethnic Karen who fled home due to civil wars in their hometown.

Rescue workers have ended the search for victims of a fire that tore through a Burmese refugee camp in northern Thailand, killing at least 36 people and leaving thousands homeless.

A man walks between body bags of victims of the fire at the Ban Mae Surin refugee camp near Mae Hong Son. Photo: REUTERS

 

By Agence France Presse

Ten children were among those killed in Friday's fire which destroyed Mae Surin camp in Mae Hong Son province, provincial governor Narumol Paravat said.

"The search operation has finished today. Rescue teams found 36 dead, among them were 10 children," she said, adding 13 of the bodies were yet to be identified.

"A police investigation has yet to conclude the cause of the fire."

Desperate refugees chopped bamboo and gathered large leaves from the surrounding jungle to build makeshift shelters as relief trickled in to the remote area, according to witnesses.

The blaze is believed to have destroyed 400 houses and left more than two thousand people homeless at the remote mountainous camp, leaving behind a stark landscape of charred tree stumps and debris. 

The Thai government has pledged an investigation into the fire at the camp, which was set up in 1992 and houses roughly 3,500 refugees.
Ten camps strung out along the Thai-Burma border are home to a total of about 130,000 people, who first began arriving in the 1980s.
Many of the refugees have fled conflict zones in ethnic minority areas of Burma.
After a new quasi-civilian government replaced the long-ruling junta in Burma two years ago, Thailand announced it wanted to shut the border camps, raising concern among their residents.
But so far they have been allowed to stay and the Thai government has stressed that it will only send them back when it is safe to do so.
Many of the refugees are from Burma's eastern Karen state, where a major rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU) signed a ceasefire deal with the new regime last year after decades of civil war. 

Edited by Chris Irvine, telegraph.co.uk