Displaced children endure trauma, violent death, disease: report

Thursday, 08 April 2010 17:54 Larry Jagan

Bangkok (Mizzima) - Every day Burma’s ethnic minority children face forced relocation, forced labour for the army, starvation, disease and death, according to a report by humanitarian groups released on Wednesday.
These children are acutely vulnerable when they are forced to flee their homes, the report by the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a Christian group that helps refugees inside Burma, and Christian aid agency Partners Relief and Development says.

One child in five displaced by the fighting dies from disease or starvation before they reach the age of two, Amanda Carrol, a project manager at Partners, told Mizzima.

“If we do nothing now to stop this, there is an extreme risk that the next generation of Burmese ethnic children won’t survive their teens,” she said.

Children are increasingly at risk now that the Burmese army is continuing its low-intensity assault against the Karen in eastern Burma, according to the report “Displaced Childhoods”, which has chronicled the children’s suffering in the conflict areas in eastern Burma since July 2002.

In the continuing military conflict, children’s lives are scarred by death and destruction at the hands of Burmese junta troops, according to the report. “Children as young as 10 have to carry supplies for the Burmese troops,” Steve Gumaer, who co-founded Partners with his wife, Oddny, said. Hundreds die from starvation, disease or are simply shot by Burmese soldiers.

The report testifies to the atrocities these ethnic children face daily as a matter of course. In one village, a seven-year-old girl was raped and killed by Burmese troops. In another a 13-year-old boy was blinded by a landmine - planted by the Burmese army - that blew up in his face.

Even when they are provided makeshift shelter in the camps set up by the junta, the ethnic “refugees” are far from safe. “In the relocation site, SPDC soldiers often beat and kicked the villagers,” said a Karenni parent with four children, who spent seven years at a relocation site and was interviewed for the report. “There isn’t the normal kind of stability you need for your family to be safe. We often heard gunshots … as there was a lot of fighting between the SPDC and rebel groups.”

Forced labour, abductions, dislocation and summary executions are continuing, Monkey, a Karen team leader with the FBR, said. In one attack in January on several villages in Karen State, three villagers were killed and most of the homes were burned down. More than a thousand people were forced to flee, many of them children. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, these people are facing certain malnourishment and disease, and in some cases they will not survive.

Since the beginning of the year, Burmese military operations have forced more than 3,000 villagers to flee their homes. More than 30,000 have fled in the past two years. “Almost everyone in the eastern areas of Karen State has had to flee for their lives in the past forty years,” FBR director David Eubank said. “It’s a huge human tragedy,” he added. Two out of every three displaced Karen are children.

Last year, more than 110,000 villagers in eastern Burma were displaced directly or indirectly through Burmese military actions, the report says. In the same area, between 2002 and the end of last year, nearly 600,000 civilians, most of them children, were forcibly evicted from their homes.

While the situation is worst in eastern Burma, where the Karen National Union continues to fight for autonomy, in most minority areas where conflict continues, civilians are facing similar conditions. Up to three million people are estimated to have been forced to flee and live in hiding or relocation camps - known as internally displaced persons (IDPs) - throughout Burma, according to the report.

“The situation is so appalling that we were compelled to compile this report and bring it to the attention of the international community,” Mr Gumaer said, adding, “In effect, we are giving these children a voice as well as highlighting their plight.”

The Partners and FBR teams collected information from 200 affected people - through community-based surveys and interviews. More than 80 in-depth interviews were also carried along the Thai-Burmese border between last June and December. The interviews included parents, grandparents and children from Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan states in junta-designated relocation sites, in ceasefire areas and in hiding. The FBR teams surveyed more than 90 people from ethnic Karen and Shan communities, nearly half of them children, in the second half of last year.

Ethnic minority villagers living in conflict areas along Burma’s borders are frequently forced to flee homes, farms and villages with little warning. They are then exposed to further rights abuses - torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape and sexual violence, forced labour and use as porters by the military, and extrajudicial killings.

At the very least, children witness these atrocities, but are also frequently the victims. Children also face recruitment as child soldiers. Whether in hiding or at relocation camps, they are denied access to adequate schooling and health care.

“This is intolerable and cannot be allowed to continue,” Ms Carrol said. “The international community must sit up and take notice - the situation of these ethnic children contravenes even Burma’s own laws.”

The organisations responsible for the report, Partners and FBR, are joining calls for a formal investigation through a UN commission of inquiry to evaluate all the allegations of international crimes committed against Burma’s civilian population, including crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“It’s time for us all to stand up and be counted,” Ms Carrol said. “Otherwise a whole generation of ethnic children could perish.”