In myanmar’s western Rakhine the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and the Arakan Army (AA) have renewed fighting and displaced up to 26,000 new people. This came to a surprise to most people overseas because of a formal ceasefire that was signed around a year ago in November. Since the ceasefire has been broken almost 90,000 people have been displaced and forced to flee mostly into Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.
This article concerns me and the International community because of the Refugee crisis this escalation could prove to create. With almost 100,000 people displaced its almost guaranteed that some of those people would attempt to flee to another country bordering Myanmar. When I was in Thailand I got to see and hear first hand about the acts committed in Myanmar and how the people that fled from there do not want to return to their homeland because they fear the government and military. This refugee crisis also causes huge amounts of humanitarian aid needed to help the people fleeing, but some places like Thailand have taken in so many refugees that anyone from Myanmar during the time frame of 2021-2022 would be sent back to Myanmar after a short “cleanup” in Thailand, making many of the people I met during my stay “Illegal” within the state.
This connects to our class because this Refugee crisis tests the identity of many bordering countries and their beliefs on if the should take refugees in, help them a little before sending them back, or send them back entirely. China has tried to stop this conflict because they are feeling the political tensions rise within the southeastern part of the continent. India has also spent lots of resources helping these refugees so its been in their best national interest to end the conflict so that they can send many of the refugees back and instead worry about their internal affairs. I would continue to look at this conflict because if this continues to ramp up then we could have a large refugee crisis like Syria or Turkey has had making the U.N’s involvement in this conflict even more important for peace talks.
Article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/18/asia/myanmar-26000-displaced-fighting-intl-hnk/index.html