Sickness and death hit Wa

Sickness and death hit Wa - again

Drugs

Two years after thousands of Wa who were resettled along the Thai border perished through a wave of diseases, the epidemic has made another return to claim more lives, said sources from Mae Ai, 180 km north of Chiangmai. 

No less than 50 have died, according to 8 patients who were receiving treatment at the Mae Ai hospital, opposite Mongyawn, lately renamed Yongpang. "More each day were dying when I left," said a Shan, whose dark complexion made him look more like a Wa, told S.H.A.N..

A Thai physician had put the death toll at 2 per day since the sickness struck Mongyawn towards the end of October. 

"Many wanted to come across the border for treatment," said another patient." But they have no IDs issued by Thailand." 

All the eight clients were carrying Highlanders Survey IDs (green cards with red rim) issued in 1999: 5 were suffering from incessant coughs, 2 of whom already emitting blood, and the rest from attacks of diarrhea. "The diseases were brought by the newcomers from Panghsang (the Wa capital near the Chinese border), who came in September," one of the inmates claimed. 

Unused to warmer climate along the Thai border, many Wa resettlers began falling ill, of malaria and other diseases shortly after their arrival, according to Unsettling Moves, a report published last year. Estimates put the death toll at 4,000 for the year 1999 and 1,000 for 2001. However, one news report by AFP in September 2000 quoted a Thai military source as saying as many as 10,000 Wa had died during the rains of 2000. 

The total number of Wa resettled in the southeastern border of Shan State from the beginning of 1999 to the end of 2001 was placed at 126,000 by the Lahu National Development Organization that published Unsettling Moves. However the official figure given by the Wa authorities was only 50,000, according to a recent report by Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute. 

"They are of course still coming down," said a patient, "but not in droves as in the past but one or two truckloads per week, most of them going to Mongpiang and Mongjawd (in Mongton township). We also heard that the Wa are being allotted new land in Tangyan and that the majority of the resettlers are going there." 

Tangyan, a township south of Lashio, is located just west of the original Wa states. Land was given to Wei Hsuehkang, commander of the southern Wa forces, after his presence along the Thai border became too embarrassing for Rangoon. 

"Since then, he has been setting up a new Wa fiefdom," said a Thai observer. "Even the Thai-initiated drug free project organizers have agreed to expand their work from Yawngkha (opposite Chiangrai's Mae Fa Luang district) to Tangyan."