遣返泰难民营内缅甸难民面临挑战

Efforts to repatriate over 98,000 ethnic Burmese refugees to Myanmar with United Nations support are making slow progress but coming under growing pressure as international donors cut funds to camps in Thailand where the refugees are living.

Humanitarian workers say the funding pressures come against a back drop of security uncertainties as well as issues of inadequate infrastructure and health systems in southeast Myanmar after years of conflict.

The nine camps on the Thai border have been in place since the mid-1980s as refugees flooded into Thailand to escape conflict between armed ethnic armies and the Myanmar military.

But programs to repatriate the refugees have increased as Myanmar, also known as Burma, has moved to democracy after the election of the civilian government under Aung San Suu Kyi in 2015.