Archives For IDPs

Refugees Without A Camp

October 28, 2011

Burmese soldiers advance. They kill our animals, take our rice.
From our schools they take the learning and the light.
They burn our villages and steal our minds.
We hear the soldiers’ voices, and we are filled with fear and hate.
And we must run, run, run, until our legs break,
Refugees without a home, refugees without a camp.

They dress our Buddhas in women’s underwear.
We see our people floating bloated in the river,
We have land but cannot farm it, forced labor is our lot.
“Peace, peace. peace,” they say. Burma says we are at peace.
But we are not. We hear gunshots night and day.
And we must run, run, run, until our legs break,
Refugees without a home, refugees without a camp.

Some Shan live in Thailand, work as servants or as slaves,
some live in relocation camps, without money, food, or hope.
Some live in the jungle and hear their dying child’s cries,
mosquitoes on their limbs, and leeches in their eyes.
They dig a shallow grave and place the child inside.
And then they run, run, run, until their legs break.
Refugees without a home, refugees without a camp.

By Sai Leng Hsim

Shan-Tai prayer month 2011, day 28

The poem above is an original Shan poem by a student at a school for Shan students in Thailand. It was translated into English by Bernice Koehler Johnson, one of his teachers.

If you have been praying with me this month you may also be feeling like me a desire to ‘do more than just pray’. My first comment about this is that praying is the most important thing we can do. Remaining at home in comfort and praying diligently and with love for Jesus and for the Shan people is not a copout unless God has clearly told you to be doing something else.

However, as I pray I find that God has been opening my eyes, heart and mind to notice other ways in which I might also be able to help the Shan people in a small way. Many people doing small things intentionally can make a massive difference. I will be continuing to pray, and with my prayers will also try to do my small things for the Shan.

Run for Relief

One way of helping might be to Run for Relief. As the website states, “for a million villagers in Burma, running is not an option”. I am not at all fit, I can barely run for 5 minutes but after praying these last 27 days and reading the poem above, it seems callous of me to not at least try. Though this will have to be something of a longer term plan!

Talk about the Shan people

Another way to help the Shan people is to talk about their situation to others. The military regime has intentionally restricted the flow of information out of Burma, we can counter this as many people willingly communicate what they have tried to suppress – the truth.

Pray for

  • The diligence and love necessary to continue praying for the Shan.
  • Insights of ways to help the Shan in addition to praying.
  • Encouragement for those who have been already labouring long to help the Shan people, whether Christians or not.
  • For knowledge of the true situation in Burma to permeate the world.

Other posts related to this topic:

External Resources:

Download the Shan Prayer Guide:

30 Days of Prayer for the Shan

In Shan prayer 2011
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Where can they go?

October 6, 2011

What does a refugee camp of 600 people look like? Well a bunch of thatch huts, an orphanage boarding house, a library, a weavery, a bunch of communal wash places, toilet blocks and of course a temple. Here we are just a few kilometres from the border to Burma, and many can see the ruins of their old villages that they were forced to flee. (Read more)

Shan-Tai prayer month 2011, day 6

Shan who flee fighting in Burma are not given refugee status in Thailand, they are considered illegal ‘migrant workers’. Shan are not permitted to establish legally sanctioned refugee camps on Thai soil. They are forced to live in illegal makeshift camps and cannot receive international aid because the Thai government classifies them as economic migrants.

Without refugee status they have no legal access to schools, health facilities, or work and are constantly under the threat of being caught and sent back to Burma. If caught by Thai police and appropriate bribes are not paid, beating, imprisonment or deportation are likely outcomes.

The Thai say I am Burmese, but the Burmese say I am Shan. So where do I go?
(Surehope)

With Thailand threatening to close existing Burmese refugee camps and send the occupants back to Burma, and the Burma Army intensifying military operations in Shan State, these people are in a very perilous and uncertain situation. They have no place to call home.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
(Hebrews 11:8-10 ESV)

Pray for

  • The Burmese government to cease its oppressive policies toward the Shan  (Psalm 140:1, Isaiah 60:18, Matthew 5:44).
  • Thailand to extend compassion and provide basic assistance to the Shan who cross its borders (Leviticus 19:33-34).
  • The Shan to seek citizenship in the kingdom of God (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Other posts related to this topic:

External Resources:

  • View a film about a Shan refugee living in Thailand at Deidox (click on the link and select Pii Chui). This film gives a good idea of what life is like for Burmese people in Thailand. Don’t miss the extra scenes with narration by Director Brent Gudge which gives more detail on how tough life is for Pii Chui.
  • A Shan Missions report of a 2005 visit to a Shan refugee camp.

These kids live in a cold ravine in NE Burma. Their homes were burned down in 2008 and they have had to run for their lives 12 times since then as Burma Army forces advance. Having shoes, even socks, they are the fortunate ones. (Burma on My Mind)

Download the Shan Prayer Guide:

30 Days of Prayer for the Shan
Image of a Shan refugee camp: The Branch Foundation

In Shan prayer 2011 ,
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Kill all males and rape all females

July 23, 2011

Please have a look at this report and pray, even a few minutes, for the Shan people of Burma:

Report on Shan IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Situation

In Burma
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God cares about the displaced

January 9, 2011

Reading the opening paragraphs of the book of Ruth I was struck by the fact that God cared about an insignificant family displaced from their land and home by famine. God knew their names, He was watching as they traveled to Moab, He paid attention to who the sons married, in fact he chose one of those Moabite women to be the great-grandmother of king David, and part of the family line of His Son, Jesus.

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
 (Ruth 1:1-5 ESV)

Obviously there were other families displaced by the same famine whose travels are not recorded in the Bible – God had a specific purpose in recording the details of this family. However, there are plenty of indications that God does pay attention to the poor and the displaced, He knew exactly where to find a widow to take Elijah in:

“Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.”
(1 Kings 17:9 ESV)

God also knew that without Elijah coming to her she would die (1 Kings 17:12), and He provided for her, her son and Elijah (1 Kings 17:13-14). Jesus himself confirms that God knew all the widows in both Israel and elsewhere (Luke 4:25-26).

As I considered Elimelech’s family fleeing the famine, I found myself praying for the Shan people, many of whom are forced to flee their homes, villages and fields to escape the Burmese army and, this year, also famine.

In previous years, the main livelihood problems for farmers have been the loss of income while doing forced labour, restrictions on traveling to fields, and extortion by various armed groups.  However, the past year has been even more difficult throughout southern Shan State because of the worst drought in decades which has caused water levels in Inle Lake and major rivers to fall dramatically.  With poor irrigation systems, the lack of rain for paddy fields will have a huge impact on the food security of rural villagers and rice prices for townspeople alike.

In this climate of instability, over 29,000 people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes during the past year.  Over 128,000 internally displaced persons are estimated to remain in southern Shan State, which represents a slight decrease compared to last year.  This is primarily because restrictions on movement in government controlled relocation sites have proved unsustainable and villagers have drifted away.
(Protracted Displacement And Chronic Poverty In Eastern Burma/Myanmar , pg 46. Thailand Burma Border Consortium
2010)

It is so easy to read numbers like ’29,000 people displaced in the past year’ and ’128,000 internally displaced persons in Southern Shan State’ and not properly register what this means. I have never been to Burma, it is impossible for me to understand the reality for all these displaced people. What I can imagine is that 128,000 is about the number of people living in Dunedin, my home city, and if all of us were forced to move out with only what we could carry on foot, this would be a major national crisis. It would make world news. Meanwhile the displaced Shan people just get on with attempting to survive under a brutal military regime while it seems nobody in the rest of the world cares.

But God cares. He knows each of those people by name, in their own language. As Gods children He delegates the task of caring to us also. I cannot do much, but I can pray. Even though I do not know the names of any of these people, God does and He can take my un-named prayers and apply them to the child or widow or father or young man or scared young woman who needs those prayers right at this moment.

See also:
In Burma
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Sojourners and exiles

October 6, 2010

Shan-Tai prayer month, day 6

There are thousands of Shan people living on the Thai border who fled there from Burma when the army seized their lands, but the Thai government refuses to give these displaced Shan people the status of resident refugees which would enable them to own land and gain education. Therefore these stateless people live under the constant risk of deportation back to places where forced labour and rape would await.

Pray for:

  • The government in Burma to cease its oppressive policies toward the Shan (Psalm 140:1, Isaiah 60:18, Matthew 5:44).
  • Thailand to extend compassion and provide basic assistance to the Shan who cross its borders (Leviticus 19:33-34).
  • Shan people to seek citizenship in the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 11:8-10)

Further information:

In Shan prayer 2010
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