Akka : In the face of worsening relations between the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), recently displaced Mon villagers who have been living in a site on the Thai-Burma border since May are finding survival increasingly difficult.
According to NMSP officers in control of the temporary displacement site, located in Baleh Done Phai village on the border, international donors stopped supporting the site in July. Mon youth living in foreign countries are reportedly continuing to contribute financial support to the site in question, but IMNA’s sources within the NMSP claim that these funds are insufficient to cover residents’ needs.
Residents of the camp told IMNA that they face day-to-day difficulties finding the money to purchase enough food to eat.
Mi San Yie, who lives in the site with her family, told IMNA “ After I arrived in Baleh Done Phai village, I could not get a job. Nobody wanted to lend me money. My children when they go to school, they are jealous [of the other children] and sad because they have no money to buy food. We do not have a single baht.”
Following the NMSP’s formal refusal of the SPDC’s Border Guard Force offer on April 22nd of this year, fighting between the two groups was feared to be imminent, and roughly 600 Mon villagers living in NMSP-controlled territory fled to the Thai-Burma border, near Halackhanee camp and Baleh Done Phai village.
According to the Mon Relief and Development Committee’s (MRDC) records, 500 of these villagers returned to their homes in May, after a war between the NMSP and the Burmese army no longer seemed to be an immediate threat. 20 families, mostly composed of individuals with disabilities and women with children, remained in the relocation area.
The MRDC’s records report that of these 20 families, there are 38 males and 39 females over the age of five, and 8 males and 9 females under five years of age. The MRDC also reported that the site contains 30 temporary homes, which were provided by the NMSP.
The NMSP formally refused to surrender its armed wing to the SPDC once again, on September 1st of this year. Thus far, villagers living in NMSP-controlled territory have opted to remain in their villages. Sources from these areas claim, however, that many villagers are anxious at the thought of impending conflict.
