Thousands of Wa resettlers perishing

Thousands of Wa resettlers perishing

An informed source reported on 31 October that more than a thousand Wa people who were forcibly moved to the border areas opposite Chiangmai and Chiangrai provinces had died during the rainy season through malaria and diarrhea. 

According to him, 319 people had been reported dead in Mongton township alone between 11 June - 20 September: 

"The figures are only according to the list that I have been able to collect," he said. "I'm sure a lot more have died both in Mongton and Monghsat." 

Most of the dead were aged between 2-16 and 55-70.

The source told S.H.A.N. although the local people believed it was "retribution by the gods" to punish the uninvited invaders from the north, he was convinced it was unfamiliar weather, water and environment that had actually brought the disaster. "Along the Chinese border, the terrain is higher, cooler and has few mosquitoes," he said. 

He blamed both the Burmese and Wa authorities for neglecting the welfare of the people they had brought down.

50,000 households, approximately half of the population in the Wa region, according to Wa officials, have been targeted to be resettled along the Thai-Burma border during a three-year program that begun in late 1999. 

Update 30 November

According to a Lahu source, 4,000 resettlers perished during the monsoons last year. It matches with a report by the Shan State Army News (later renamed Freedom News), Issue # 18, August - September 2000, that claimed a total of 3,777 died in three months, from June-August.