A toddler poses for a photograph on the Mae La refugee camp within the mountains close to Thailand’s border with Myanmar. (Claire Ham)
The Mae La refugee camp, positioned in a mountainous area alongside Thailand’s western border, has been dwelling to over 40,000 refugees from Myanmar for 40 years now. Surrounded by barbed wire, occupants can’t depart with out permission from the Thai authorities. Nevertheless, it’s protected from assaults by the army junta that guidelines Myanmar. The identical goes for the eight different refugee camps like Mae La.
Once I visited the camp final month, Massa and Naw Cindy, two girls of their 70s who reside in Mae La, informed me that they’ve been dropping sleep worrying about their kids. They realize it gained’t be lengthy till the overseas assist that the US has lengthy offered will probably be lower off, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
A month from now, Massa and Naw Cindy will now not obtain the rice and emergency medical help which were offered till now. As if that weren’t sufficient, their kids, who’ve been employed by an NGO mission, will quickly lose their jobs, plunging the household into financial uncertainty.
83% of Mae La lower off from assist beginning subsequent month
As a member of the German chapter of Amnesty Worldwide, I’ve maintained contact with a trainer in Mae La since 2024. I had reached out to realize an understanding of how Trump’s slashing of US overseas assist would impression susceptible communities world wide.
Someday, this trainer despatched me a Fb message saying that Mae La would now not be receiving meals help offered via US assist. Just lately, I got here throughout an article that reported a 2-year-old dwelling in a refugee village had died again in Might because of US overseas assist being lower off. I couldn’t simply sit again whereas 1000’s of people that’d been pushed into the mountains by the brutal violence of the army junta have been left to starve. With a way of urgency, I ready to go to the camp to inform the world about it.
Throughout my preparations, I found that the Thai city of Mae Sot, an hour’s drive from the Mae La refugee camp, can be dwelling to pro-democracy activists and their households who have been pushed from their properties in Myanmar to Thailand, the place they eke out an existence as undocumented refugees. There aren’t any official stats, however Mae Sot is dwelling to an estimated 70,000 refugees from Myanmar — round 65% of the city’s whole inhabitants.
On Nov. 17, after going via a stringent screening by immigration authorities on the Mae Sot airport, I arrived at my lodging and unpacked. Early the following day, I traveled to the Mae La camp, 57 kilometers away.
Since being established in 1984 alongside Thailand’s border with what was then referred to as Burma, the camp has regularly expanded in measurement. It now occupies 1.84 sq. kilometers — round half the dimensions of Central Park in New York.
Indicators studying “Funding offered by USA” are sometimes seen on outlets and buildings in Thailand’s Mae La camp, however Trump’s cuts to overseas assist will seemingly make them a factor of the previous earlier than lengthy. (Claire Ham)
Inside laws inside the camp are complicated and require me to depart every day at 4 pm, so I moved shortly. I visited some properties guided by an acquaintance and toured the native clinics. The opening-in-the-wall store the place these dwelling within the camp can purchase rice with meals playing cards even offered Buldak prompt noodles. The gathering of church buildings, mosques and monks made me really feel like I used to be in a miniature world village.
My information launched me to 11 individuals who reside within the Mae La camp, and I listened to every of their tales. It was clear that the choice by the US Division of State’s Bureau of Inhabitants, Refugees, and Migration to finish most overseas assist has had a large impression on the refugees within the camp.
Whereas the help impacts every thing from medical care to training and common welfare, the most important issue is meals.
All of the refugees I spoke with couldn’t cover their worries in regards to the impending termination of meals assist. Beginning January 2026, solely these deemed “most susceptible,” who account for round 17% of present assist beneficiaries, will proceed to obtain meals provides. The remaining 83% may have their assist lower off totally.
No means to pay hospital payments, no therapy alternatives
13 NGOs have collaborated to help this refugee camp, and the primary group offering meals and shelter is, indisputably, The Border Consortium, or TBC. A coalition of 9 NGOs from North America and Europe, TBC has been working with refugees in Thailand for over 40 years, since 1984.
TBC categorizes refugees into three separate teams based mostly on the scenario of every camp and particular person refugee, offering rice via meals playing cards with budgets tailor-made to every group. Meals playing cards are allotted in keeping with want, damaged down into the classes of “commonplace” (227 baht, roughly US$7.11), “susceptible” (270 baht, roughly US$8.45), and “most susceptible” (355 baht, roughly US$11.12).
Myanmar is dwelling to round 135 distinct ethnic teams, however greater than three-quarters of the Mae La refugee camp consists of Karen folks, who reside throughout each Myanmar and Thailand.
“It’s doable to develop and harvest meals corresponding to mushrooms and coriander inside the camp, however we can not develop rice, which is our staple meals,” sighed Noticed Robert Htwe, the chief of the Karen Refugee Committee.
Kids at play within the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand. (Claire Ham)
Medical companies are additionally being severely affected. The Worldwide Rescue Committee had been offering medical help, however now refugees are being requested to fend for themselves because of workers reductions and drastic funding cuts. The scenario is particularly dire for emergency companies.
The one hospital inside the refugee camp is simply too outdated and dilapidated for sufferers requiring specialised surgical procedure, which signifies that those that require such therapy should go to hospitals in main cities. Refugees at the moment are anticipated to foot these medical payments from their very own meagre pockets.
Final winter, a person in his 60s died after sustaining accidents from a ladder fall as he went from hospital to hospital, solely to be turned away as a result of he didn’t have the means to pay.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio beforehand declared that “Nobody has died due to USAID [cuts],” even going as far as to state, “No kids are dying on my watch.” The fact within the camp says in any other case.
“If sufferers unable to pay for his or her medical payments fail to obtain well timed therapy, we are going to see extra folks be resigned to lonely deaths,” a nurse informed me.
Employment can be a problem. 13 NGOs supported 9 refugee camps, however the termination of US assist has led to vital workers layoffs. The fickleness of the US authorities, which has offered 80% of the help over the previous 40 years, has compelled TBC to close down two branches. In consequence, refugee workers members, who had been engaged on tasks run by NGOs, additionally confronted mass unemployment.
Solely permitting registered refugees job alternatives
Fortunately, not all developments have been detrimental. The Thai authorities beforehand prohibited refugees residing within the 9 camps from working, however modified its tune in August 2025 to take a extra proactive stance. Out of the 107,000 refugees in whole, 77,000 refugees registered with the Thai Ministry of the Inside will probably be allowed to work.
Léon de Riedmatten, the manager director of TBC, stated throughout a phone interview that the choice recommended that the Thai authorities has acknowledged the truth that Myanmar refugees don’t have any selection however to remain long-term in Thailand. He additional posited that Thailand was trying to interchange Cambodian migrant employees, lots of whom have returned to their nation, with Myanmar refugees.
Riedmatten stated the TBC welcomed these strikes that inspired the independence of refugees and which is able to assist double their earnings. Noting that this was the primary time in 40 years that the consortium needed to handle such modifications, the TBC director stated his group is planning a one-year employment preparation help mission and striving to safe the mandatory funding for its implementation.
Nevertheless, many refugees, regardless of embracing the Thai authorities’s change of coronary heart, stay skeptical, expressing considerations about numerous language and cultural obstacles, the inadequate labor market and exploitation with low pay. Riedmatten responded to such considerations by stressing the necessity to stay thoughtful of undocumented Myanmar refugees, who nonetheless have a protracted highway, affected by obstacles, forward of them.
TBC has largely centered its efforts to realize help from Western international locations, Riedmatten stated, however as anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments develop more and more as such international locations have began to study additional to the best, it hopes that neighboring international locations in Asia, together with South Korea, will take part.
Based on TBC’s 2025 midyear overview, Australia, New Zealand and the UK have been the highest supporters of its work. Japan first offered help to Myanmar in 2025, whereas South Korea has but to supply any form of funding.
The refugees of Mae Sot that Riedmatten refers to are those that exist outdoors Thailand’s governmental system. They roam with a semblance of freedom outdoors the guarded camp gates, however battle lonely fights for his or her lives, as they, not like their counterparts in refugee camps, should discover a technique to survive with out NGO help.
A retired trainer dwelling within the Mae La camp. Her daughter is at present in jail after being handed a sentence of 37 years for taking part within the Myanmar democratization motion. Beginning in January, she is going to now not obtain meals assist offered by the US authorities. (Claire Ham)
4 courageous Myanmar girls who have been launched to me by an activist affiliated with the Spring Revolution, the time period used domestically to point the civil disobedience and resistance actions in February 2021, at a Korean language college on Nov. 20. All 4 acutely felt the burden of their lives on their shoulders and yearned for any sort of serving to hand.
All the ladies have been new political refugees who, after taking part within the civil disobedience following the army coup, fled excessive persecution, together with dying threats and arrest. One lady, a documentary director and journalist in her 30s, has the only real accountability to make sure that her kids are fed and protected, as her husband fights as a member of the civilian resistance.
She described the despair of seeing her jar of rice lastly empty, occurring to request job help for exiled Myanmar filmmakers and journalists.
South Korea, but to take part in any assist efforts
One other lady in her 30s agonized over the truth that the price of hemodialysis, important to her survival as an individual with extreme kidney failure, was burdening her household when her total household had been blacklisted. She shed tears over the truth that even animals had shelters that might shield them, whereas she was right here, disadvantaged of primary safety.
One younger mom was equally compelled to maintain two young children, her youthful sister, and her mom, who has schizophrenia, all on her personal abroad. The non-governmentally run shelters solely enable for stays of three months, sending her wandering from one shelter to the following as she searches for work as a maid. Every night time when she returns to her lodging, drained after a protracted day, she should look after her ailing mom. Corrupt cops who exploit the vulnerability of those refugees to extract cash and valuables from them solely add to her troubles.
What does any of this need to do with Korea? We, too, have been the beneficiaries of UNHCR assist within the wake of the Korean Battle. If we don’t prolong a serving to hand to folks displaced by a civil battle and those that have misplaced every thing whereas preventing the army regime in Myanmar, what does that say of our nation’s character? Somewhat than counting on exporting our cultural merchandise, wouldn’t a better supply of satisfaction be present in demonstrating to our neighbors in Asia the Korean spirit of serving to our group?
By Claire Ham, Germany-based freelance journalist and filmmaker
Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]
