About 1,500 people displaced by fighting now staying in Hai Pa IDP (internally displaced persons) camp in Mong Hsu Township, Central Shan State cannot return home and need immediate resettlement said the Shan Youth, Yangon organisation.
Over 10,000 residents of central Shan State were forced to flee their homes due to fighting between the Shan State Progressive Party (SSP/SSA) and the Myanmar Army in late 2015.
About half of those IDPs have been able to return home, but about 1,500 IDPs in Hai Pa IDP Camp still cannot return home said Sai Oo from Shan Youth, Yangon after members of the group had visited the camp to make donations.
He said: “The Tatmadaw [Myanmar Army] has set up camp in Tar Sarm Boo Village. The refugees can’t leave [Hai Pa IDP camp] yet. It’s the same in Nam Par Moung, Nam Soke, KoongNim, and Ho Nam villages. When they went to their villages to work a government military column kicked them out. There are still landmines left in the villages, that’s why these local residents are in immediate need of resettlement.”
He also explained that some of the IDPs are growing seasonal crops on land near to the camp. He said: “The item the IDPs need most is crop seed.”
Sai Oo also said that a total of 1,498 residents from 298 households in these five villages are still living at Hai Pa IDP Camp, but the camp is facing problems because the owner of the land where the camp is situated wants the land back so that he can start farming it again.
Shan Youth, Yangon also called on the new government to restore the ruined farmland so that it can be farmed again, remove landmines in the villages, set up no-fighting zones and solve the issues of villagers’ security, human rights violations and threats.
The villagers from Nam Par Moung and KoongNim villages have requested the authorities not to force them to go back home and to allow them to continue living at the IDP camp.
They said that if they return to the villages they would have difficulty re-establishing their lives because their houses have been burned down, their livestock has been killed and they risk being killed by landmines and unexploded shells.
Shan Youth, Yangon; Southern Shan State Youth Network; Peace and Justice Legal Aid Centre; Myanmar People’s Alliance and the Artist’s Group (Taunggyi) visited the refugee camps in Mong Hsu with the peace convoy from 28 to 31 January.
Courtesy BNI