Burmese tsunami victims "non-existent" for Bangkok and Yangon
Many Burmese illegal migrants who perished along the Thai coast after the freak wave which struck last December, are "invisibie" for the authorities. Their relatives have been abandoned by NGOs. Their community leader: "We are human beings too, after all".
Phuket (AsiaNews/SCMP) More than 70 Burmese people who died in Thailand during the 26 December tsunami cannot be buried because they are "not recognised" by the military junta of Yangon or by Bankok. The bodies were identified by relatives and the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification team, which is operating on the resort island of Phuket. However, official representatives of the Bangkok government refuse to hand over the bodies for burial until the Yangon military junta officially recognizes that these people were their citizens, which the Myanmar government has refused to do so far.
More than 100,000 Burmese expatriates work along Thailand's coast, but the junta denies responsibility for their fate because these people fled the country illegally, mostly by sea.
Thai authorities acknowledge the workers who, despite their illegal entry, have been granted permission to work in Thailand, but those who are caught working without permission are swiftly expelled. The international identification team, which originally numbered more than 30 nations, says the issue should be taken up by Bangkok.
An official with the International Organisation for Migration, a non-governmental organisation providing assistance to expatriate workers, said talks between Bangkok and Yangon had broken down because the military junta refused to acknowledge the existence of the hapless illegal migrants. The victims' families are entangled in this controversy without receiving help from anyone, after they were encouraged by identification groups to overcome their fear of the authorities of both nations to claim their lost relatives.
After urging them to proceed, the groups are abandoning the families. Htoo Chit, leader of the expatriate Burmese community, said yesterday: "We would like the international community to look at this issue because we are humans too." Now that the majority of western victims have been identified, the identification team is leaving the island of Phuket; soon it will shift its headquarters to Bangkok.
Ironically it is the illegal Burmese workers who are rebuilding the island's tourist infrastructure. The new "control towers" under construction will send messages in five languages to warn islanders in case of new earthquake tremors, to avoid a repetition of the chaos and misinformation which prevailed when the freak wave struck on 26 December. Although the Burmese community is the largest minority along the coast, its language is not among the five chosen for the warning system.
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11/08/2017 20:05
