TAK – A total of 108 Myanmar residents of Mae La refugee camp in Tha Song Yang district have decided to return home.
Members of 28 families said they wanted to go back to their original hometown, Suebpong Nimpoonsawat, chief of Tha Song Yang district, said on Monday.
Officials from Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Myanmar embassy have visited the camp on the Thai-Myanmar border whose occupants are mainly ethnic Karen from Myanmar. The camp has been established since 1984 and housed approximately 43,000 refugees in 2014.
The diplomatic team will process the documents for them to legally go back home, Mr Suebpong said.
Since the election in Myanmar in 2016, the government led by president Htin Kyaw and state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has worked with the Thai government to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Myanmar refugees living along the border.
If they agree to go home, the Myanmar government has undertaken to provide them with land they can live on and farm.