HY, Thailand

HY, 22 years old, spent her entire life hiding in the forests of Xieng Khouang province in Laos. She lost two sisters and five cousins during attacks on her family and fled to Thailand in 2005. She now lives with her husband and daughter in a camp ensnared with barbed wire fencing in Thailand’s Petchabun province where they, and 7,800 others, live in constant fear of being sent back to Laos.

HY is an ethnic Hmong, a group that has experienced persecution by the Communist government in Laos ever since it came to power in 1975. Some of the Hmong in Laos fought alongside US armed forces against the North Vietnamese and Communist Pathet Lao forces during the US-Vietnam War from 1960-1975, before HY was even born.

HY recalls her daily life in Laos.

“I lived all my life in the forest in Laos. We were chased by the Lao and Vietnamese soldiers all the time. Sometime the planes attacking us would drop bombs that produced a poisonous, yellow-coloured gas. We would have to run and hide among the trees. During one attack, one of my younger sisters breathed in poisonous gas and she passed out. My mother had to carry her. Eventually, all her teeth fell out. After I married my husband, I went to live with his family close to my parents. But during one attack, I was separated from my parents and have neither seen nor heard from them ever since that day. I don’t know if they are alive or dead.  We had to live in house made out tree branches and leaves. We had hardly any food when my daughter was born. It was really difficult to survive. I was very skinny and got sick a lot. I often came down with fevers and my body always felt like it hurt.

My husband decided we could no longer stay in the forest. He thought we should try to come to Thailand. We were still constantly being chased by the Lao. When we finally made it to the Mekong River my husband paid a fisherman to take us across the river. Then we paid some more silver to a driver and my husband told him to take us where the Hmong were living. Ever since we fled Laos our life has gotten better because we have had food to eat and we don’t have to hide from attacks. But I am so afraid that we will be sent back. If I think about it too much I faint. I don’t want to be sent back to Laos to be killed. Everyone is saying we are going to be sent back.”

 

Thailand has not ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, and as a result does not recognise the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Thai government has prevented the UNHCR’s representatives from accessing the camp to determine the protection status of these refugees.

Since 2005, Médecins Sans Frontières had been the only international aid agency working inside this camp, providing medical care, food, and water and sanitation services to every refugee. In late 2007, when the Thai and Lao authorities announced their intention to return the Hmong refugees to Laos, Médecins Sans Frontières immediately called upon the Thai government to halt all forced repatriation proceedings and to allow UNHCR representatives to independently assess the claims of the refugees as required under international law. In early 2008, however, the Thai government began to deport individuals from the camp.

In May 2009, Médecins Sans Frontières announced that it had no choice but to leave the camp, following increasingly coercive tactics used by the Thai military against the Hmong to return to Laos. These tactics also included forcing the refugees to pass through military checkpoints in order to access care from Médecins Sans Frontières. Another organisation has now taken over activities, and the Thai and Lao Governments remain firm in their commitments to repatriate all Hmong back to Laos by the end of 2009.