Burma and Refugees

When I first started working with refugees a couple of years ago, I remember that I had no idea about the extent of Burma's refugee crisis. I had heard of Burma, and saw the word Myanmar, but had no idea where the country was or how to pronounce it's name. I have had the opportunity to work with refugees originating from Burma (Karen, Karenni, Shan, Burman, Chin and Rohingya) over the past few years and have become passionate about refugee issues. Below are some statistics that I have put together, taken from the UNHCR website, as well as a powerpoint presentation I made for my class about refugee resettlement in the US, a process which is currently greatly affecting the Burmese refugee population.

According to the UNHCR, as of January 2010....

• there are 406,669 documented refugees originating from Myanmar
• there are 22,583 documented asylum seekers originating from Myanmar.
• there are 0 refugees originating from Myanmar that have officially been repatriated.
• there are 67,290 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) currently in Myanmar.
• there are currently 496,542 people that are in danger of becoming refugees in Myanmar currently.

map and statistics courtesy of UNHCR (www.unhcr.org)

You can also look at my slideshow HERE