Chin, Faced with Food Shortage, Entering Thailand

By LAWI WENG

More than 2,000 Chin migrants from northern Burma who are faced with food shortages have illegally entered Thailand through Three Pagodas Pass in recent months, say sources on the border.

According to sources who are involved in smuggling migrant workers from Burma into Thailand through Three Pagodas Pass, scores of Chin are arriving at the border every day.

“I have smuggled about 500 people [Chin] into Thailand during the last several months,” said one source. “They plan to go to Malaysia.”

An estimated 60,000 Chin now live in Malaysia or India as migrants or refugees.

Min Thang, a member of the Chin National Council who lives in Mizoram, Indian, said many Chin villagers have abandoned farming after their crops were destroyed this year by an infestation of rats. Women also believe that if they can find work abroad, they can earn enough money to survive and send some back home, he said.

A Chin woman in Sangkalaburi in Kanchanaburi Province in Thailand said it took a week to make the journey from Chin State to Three Pagodas Pass during the rainy season. She said she paid about 150,000 kyat (US $119) to a smuggler to cross the border into Thailand.

Leaders of the Chin National Council said in August that the Burmese military government was not allowing food supplies donated from foreign countries to reach the areas experiencing a food shortage.

According to a Mizoram-based Chin relief group, the Chin Famine Emergency Relief Committee, about 100,000 of the 500,000 residents in Chin State face a food shortage, which began in December 2007. Many people are surviving on boiled rice, fruit and vegetables, said the agency.

A famine is said to occur in the area about every 50 years when the flowering of a native species of bamboo gives rise to an explosion in the rat population, experts say. The International Rice Research Institute has warned of “widespread food shortages” in the region.