The Forgotten people of Mae Tao

THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE OF MAE TAO

The Saffron revolution in September had awakened the world to the brutality of the military junta in Burma . As attention of the international media on Burma fade away, little remain known to the outside world of the longest and largest humanitarian disaster in Southeast Asia .

In 1949, a year after Burma gained independence from the British, civil war broke out between the central government in Rangoon and various ethnic groups in the outlying frontier regions. The Karens, who inhabited in the highlands along the Thai-Myanmar border were relentlessly prosecuted by the Burmese army; many lost their homes and fled to Thailand where they end up as refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Over 5 decades, the number of refugees swelled up to close to 1 million according to the United Nations High Council for Refugees. In 1988, after a failed uprising against the military junta, thousands of university students fled to the border. One of them is a Karen doctor -Dr Cynthia Maung.

With a dilapidated building with bare dirt floors, a rice cooker, solicited medicine and food, Dr Cynthia Maung started the Mae Tao Clinic on the outskirts of Mae Sot, Thailand . Working tirelessly under harsh conditions with few supplies and less money, Dr Cynthia Maung managed to turn Mae Tao clinic into an oasis of hope for the homeless refugees stranded along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Dr Cynthia Maung

Today, the Mae Tao Clinic has grown to provide inpatient and outpatient medical services, basic surgical service, and mobile satellite clinics set up in Karen controlled war zone to assist those who cannot reach the clinic. There is a staff of 5 physicians, 120 health workers and 40 support staff providing basic healthcare to 300 to 400 patients who come to the clinic daily.

Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand

Dr Cynthia Maung has received many honors for the clinic’s humanitarian work.  As we wept for the innocent lives lost during the Saffron revolution, let us do a small part for the forgotten people of Mae Tao. The homepage of Mae Tao clinic is at www.maetaoclinic.org. 

The author is a participant of NUSSU Project Letpabya, a humanitarian mission to Myanmar in 2004.