Pressure from Thai Army Forces Closure of Refugee camp

Medicins Sans Frontieres has closed a refugee camp in Thailand that was serving about 5,000 Hmong asylum seekers from Laos. The group cited pressure and intimidation by the Thai army.

MSF says this was a difficult decision to make.

It is the sole international organisation allowed to work in the camp in northern Thailand which still houses nearly 5,000 ethnic Hmong who fled from Laos four years ago.

It provides most of the food and medical treatment for them.

But, says Gilles Isard, who heads the MSF mission in Thailand, the increasing restrictions imposed by the Thai military on its activities and the army's harassment of the Hmong have forced it to pull out.

"More and more, the Thai army is trying to use coercive measure to force the people to return to Laos. Also they are pressuring MSF.

"For instance they have been trying to demand MSF stop providing food distribution to the people in order to punish them," he told the BBC.

Thailand is notorious for its treatment of refugees. In its 2008 World Refugee Survey, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) named Thailand one of the "Worst Places for Refugees." According to the organization's report,

Thailand returned thousands of Myanmarese directly over to authorities in their home country, and informally forced nearly 25,400 more back across the border. Thailand does not recognize most of the Myanmarese refugees in its territories, and those that it does it warehouses in camps without the right to work. It allowed notorious Or Sor militia to administer some of these camps, provoking a riot when one shot and killed a refugee in December. On its website, the Ministry of Interior listed “to intercept and drive back refugees” among its key functions. Officials also confined nearly 8,000 Hmong refugees from Laos to a camp and vowed to force them back to Laos, “no matter how many bullet wounds they have.”