Thailand has hosted refugees from Burma/Myanmar for more than three decades. The current nine main camps that are home to around 86,000 people are a result of consolidations over the years of many smaller settlements along the 2,400-kilometre border line.

Thousands of refugees from Burma have lived confined to the refugee camps in Thailand for 30 years. Although refugee camps are hardly natural places to live, thousands have been born in the camps and never left.

2024年12月11日 · Today there are some 86,539 refugees in Thailand. Most refugees (as of November 2024) are ethnic minorities from Myanmar, mainly Karen and Karenni, who live in nine camps in four provinces along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Mae La is the largest refugee camp for Karen refugees in Thailand. Over 90% are the persecuted ethnic Karen. [3] The camps are overseen and run by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), a union of 11 international non-governmental organizations that provide food, shelter and non food items to the Burmese refugees and displaced people. [4]

After the fall of the KNU headquarters in Manerplaw the following year, a number of refugee camps in Thailand were attacked in cross-border raids in the area, and the Thai authorities began to consolidate the sites to improve security.

The group of refugees residing in the nine camps are of mainly Karen, Karenni and Burmese ethnicity, some of whom have lived in Thailand since the mid-1980s after fleeing conflict between ethnic armed groups and the Myanmar military.

2023年12月31日 · Grandi, visited Thailand, including a one day visit to Tham Hin Refugee Camp along the Thai-Myanmar Border. The visit strengthened the cooperation between the RTG and UNHCR to advance the protection of refugees, asylum-seekers, and stateless people in Thailand. © UNHCR/Dustin Okazaki Tham Hin Refugee Camp, 15 October 2023