14-05-2025
Myanmar refugees in Thailand face health crisis after USAid withdrawal
A displaced child from Myanmar's Karen minority, pictured wth her mother, receives treatment at Tha Song Yang hospital in Thailand's Tak state. After the USAid announcement, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which had been the main healthcare provider in the refugee camps, was forced to shut down its clinics.
Since the suspension of the IRC camp clinics, the Tha Song Yang hospital has been working to provide medical aid and care for those in the Mae La camp, home to about 30,000 people. Most camp residents are from Myanmar's ethnic Karen group.
Abe, who was injured by shrapnel from an airstrike in Myanmar, sought medical treatment at Tha Song Yang hospital. Tawatchai Yingtaweesak, the hospital's director of Tha Song Yang, said it was struggling to fill in the gaps, and lacked the policies and support to provide care in the camps.
A child in a refugee camp in Thailand. There are now about 90,000 displaced people living in nine temporary camps along the border with Myanmar, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
Patients wait for screening before seeing a doctor at Mae Tao clinic, a small hospital in the Thai city of Mae Sot which provides medical services for migrants, displaced, stateless, and indigenous people along the border, who struggle to obtain care at state-run facilities.
Shacks in a refugee camp for displaced people from Myanmar in Thailand. Thailand's nine refugee camps are spread across four border provinces – Mae Hong Son, Tak, Kanchanaburi, and Ratchaburi.
People at a refugee camp on the Thai border with Myanmar pray on a Sunday. Most Karen refugees are Christian.
Staff at the Mae Tao clinic talk to a migrant mother and her child during their screening. Cynthia Maung, a stateless Karen doctor, founded the clinic in 1988 to offer primary healthcare in the area after she fled Myanmar.
Inside the outpatient screening room at Mae Tao clinic. The facility treats about 100,000 people every year.
Some refugees were transferred to Tha Song Yang hospital after the IRC health clinics' budget was suspended by the US. Other hospitals in Tak, including Mae Sot and Maeramat hospitals are also starting to fill the gap left by the IRC-run clinics.
Mr T is one of the refugees who lives in a refugee camp along the Thai border with Myanmar. Half of his body is paralysed. His family say that usually IRC clinics would send Mr T for treatment at a state-run hospital outside the camp and fully cover his expenses. However the IRC clinic's budget was suspended by the US critical cases can no longer be transferred to other hospitals.
