1. Karen nation collective gathering in solidarity at Washington DC in 6th November, 2017, clearly illustrated the current situation for internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees from SE Myanmar.

2. The internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees are the direct consequence of a many decades-long offensive attacks of ethnic territories by the Myanmar military. The Myanmar military used its “Four Cuts” strategy as the basis of their warfare, and repeatedly committed extrajudicial killing against and burned the houses of civilians.

3. Currently, only some Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the Myanmar government while, at the same time, the Myanmar military continues to attack ethnic armed organizations in North-East Myanmar.

4. Moreover, even though the Karen National Union and Myanmar government signed a Nation Wide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) 2015, concrete agreement and implementation of the military Code of Conducts is still uncertain and the military continue to expand their forward bases in KNU-controlled areas.

5. In addition, the wider political negotiation between the NCA signatories and government hasn’t shown any real signs of progress but the EAOs are reviewing the process.

6. On the other hand, cross-border relief aid has recently been completely stopped and other support for IDPs and refugees are being reduced and completely cut by international donors. In particular, food support for Ei Tu Hta IDP camp in Mutraw district of Karen State was completely axed at the end of September this year. So, IDPs from the camp have grave anxiety for their ongoing life security and survival.

7. Consequently, we would humbly like to urge US agencies and international communities to fulfill the points raised by KO-USA and maintain the previous cross-border assistance for internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees.

Contact person:

Mahn Mahn – (+66) 87 943 8750

Download the statement in English HERE.

ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္ ျမန္မာဘာသာကုိ ဤေနရာတြင္ ရယူႏုိင္သည္။