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- West Bank/Gaza, 06/05: Kafa Kids Get a New School
[pdf, English
/ Arabic]
- Egypt, 05/05: First Lady Laura Bush Meets Egypt's
Alam Simsim Muppets [html]
- West Bank/Gaza, 05/05: USAID Invests $6 Million
in Job Creation [pdf, English
/ Arabic]
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June 20, 2004: World Refugee Day
A Ray of Hope on the Burmese Border
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Poogsri Bootnoy,
head nurse at the IRC's Maneeloy Student Cetner Clinic,
examines a young Burmese refugee. |
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Photo: Thatcher Cook/IRC |
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Dr. Cynthia, as her patients call her, is a ray of hope for
the thousands of refugees living along the Thai-Burma border.
Having fled the conflict in Burma and oppressive rule of the
ruling military junta, they now subsist on the fringes. Health
care is one of the many things that is in short supply. Dr.
Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao clinic in the Thai border town
of Mae Sot sees up to 200 patients every day. The clinic’s
five doctors and dozens of other medical staff treat everything
from malaria and diarrhea to gunshot wounds broken bones.
Dr. Cynthia is herself a refugee, having fled the junta’s
bloody crackdown in 1988 against those working for democracy.
She did not expect to be in Thailand for more than a few months.
She hoped conditions in Burma would improve. However, she
saw hundreds of sick and wounded around her. With the few
medical supplies she could scrape together and a rice cooker
as a sterilizer, she set up her clinic. Months turned into
years, as conditions in Burma got worse instead of better.
Every day, more Burmese flee across the border and into her
clinic.
Life on the border is not easy for many reasons. Poverty
and hopelessness create more challenges. Injuries from domestic
violence are about as common as those from war. To fight some
of these corrosive aspects of refugee life, Dr. Cynthia supports
women’s organizations and youth programs.
Training Backpack Medics
The clinic is also the training post for more than 80 backpack
medics. These medics make the dangerous trek across the border
into the dense Burmese jungles to treat the thousands of people
who have fled or were forced out of their homes. Malaria is
a common killer as are landmines. The medics risk their lives
sneaking past Burmese border guards and the military that
often patrol the area. With only the medical supplies they
can carry, they save hundreds of lives.
Rebuilding Lives
This year's theme for World Refugee Day is "Rebuilding
Lives in Safety and Dignity". The work of Dr. Cynthia
and her staff is a major step towards that goal. Between mid-2002
and mid-2003 alone, she and her staff treated more than 30,000
refugees and others living along the border. The clinic’s
outpost inside the Karen State in Burma treated another 15,000
internally displaced people living near the border. USAID
provides funding to support the tremendous work Dr. Cynthia
and her staff do every day.
See also:
USAID in Burma: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/countries/burma/burma.html
International Rescue Committee in Thailand: http://www.theirc.org/index.cfm/wwwID/374/locationID/42
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