Surviving a childhood in refugee camps, and thriving

It was late at night when my family and I climbed into a boat to cross the Salween River into Thailand. We were trying to escape the civil war in our remote village in the Karen State in eastern Burma. Although I don’t remember the exact date, I know it was on a December night in 1990 that my family sought shelter in a refugee camp across the border.

I was 4 years old, and I can’t remember anything of the trip itself. But my parents often recalled the old days, reminding my brother, three sisters and me never to forget our roots. We are one of many ethnic minorities in Burma; ours is the ethnic Karen, or Kayin, which makes up approximately 7 percent of the population of 60 million in Burma, also known as Myanmar. It is estimated that 7 million Karen people still live in various parts of the country, including the Karen State.  

After Burma gained independence from the British in 1948, the Burmese government refused to grant independent states or equal rights to ethnic minorities, including the Karen. So, in 1949, ethnic Karen rebels began waging war against the Burmese government. During the decades-long civil war that followed, tens of thousands of Karen civilians were forced off their land and fled for their lives. 

In 1990, the Burmese army’s air strikes against the Karen rebels landed in my village. We had to hide in bunkers in the jungle. As the fighting continued, my family decided to leave our village and cross into Thailand. There are nine Burmese refugee camps on the Thai border, and since the 1990s, some 140,000 Karen have taken refuge in these camps. My family was among them.

 When I was 6 years old, I started going to school in a refugee camp. It was run by community leaders from within the camp. Students used slate to write on because paper was too costly; teachers used chalk on blackboards made of wood. The subjects we were taught included the English and Karen alphabets, mathematics and drawing. 

All of the buildings in the camp — shelter, schools, clinics, churches, monasteries and food stores — were made of bamboo, wood and leaves. They were more like huts. We walked to school and mostly traveled on foot in the camp. There was no electricity, Internet or phone lines.

Life in the camp was extremely difficult for our family. I had to use candlelight or light from locally handmade lamps fueled by diesel oil for reading and doing my homework. At times I had to finish my assignments before sunset because my family couldn’t afford candles or lamps. We sometimes used iodized salt to brush our teeth and wash our mouths, because we couldn’t afford toothpaste. We often took baths and showers without soap.

Like so many of the refugees, my parents had been farmers before they had to flee, and they had no income in the camps. They were solely dependent on humanitarian support for all the basics, including food, medicine, health care, materials for daily use and constructing shelter. These were all provided by global charity organizations and international governments, and facilitated by the humanitarian aid agency The Border Consortium.

Foods such as rice, beans, cooking oil, salt, fish paste, canned fish, chili and other supplies were distributed monthly to households in the camp for free. Bamboo, wood and leaves were delivered annually to households to construct and repair their shelters.  

Living in the refugee camps was like being a bird in a cage. We were officially barred by Thai authorities from traveling outside the camp to study or look for work; we were allowed to leave only for medical emergencies. Refugees were subject to arrest and extortion by Thai security guards and police if they were caught outside the camp. 

I grew up and spent almost 20 years in several refugee camps, completing the informal education that was available within the camps. But, like all students in the camps, I could not enroll in a university or any Thai or Burmese institution of higher education because they don’t accept the camp schools’ certificate of completion.

After finishing 10th grade, students can go to a community college inside the refugee camp. These are run by community leaders with the help of some foreign volunteers. Even though many of my classmates attended these schools, most of them still had to work in the camps (despite their education, they are not permitted to leave) in low-paying community projects run by nongovernmental organizations. At these projects, such as schools and clinics, local workers are paid lower wages than international staff at the same organizations. 

Unlike many of my friends, I didn’t go to a community college, because I didn’t see any hope for my future on that path. Instead, I tried to make friends with supportive elders, teachers and community leaders, hoping they could help me reach my goal of becoming an educated person and obtaining a well-paid job. 

I also avoided having a girlfriend when I was a teenager. Rules about dating were very strict, and sexual relations before marriage were forbidden by the religion and culture. Young couples who were suspected of having a sexual relationship were forced to get married by community leaders and their parents, even if it was against their will. In the refugee camps, once you got married, there was no hope for further education. Many of my friends under 18 ended up in early marriages due to joblessness and limited access to further education.

The mentors I found encouraged me to study English during the summer holidays. They also guided me to read books in addition to those in my school curriculum, so I read other nonfiction and fiction books for general knowledge. My parents also encouraged me to broaden my reading. 

After I finished 10th grade, I took the risk of traveling outside the camp for further educational opportunities. Being stateless and with no legal status, I risked being arrested or extorted by Thai police just by leaving the camp. Nevertheless, with the help of a few close teachers and friends, I applied for journalism training and other on-the-job study programs.

In 2004, I was selected to study journalism in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand, in a course organized by Burmese media organization The Irrawaddy. Although I wasn’t able to get a job after the training, I applied and was accepted to another journalism program, in the same city, in 2005. After that one-year program, I had a six-month internship at and then became a staff reporter with the Network Media Group, a Burmese media organization also in Chiang Mai. In 2007, I was selected for an internship at The Irrawaddy, after which I was promoted to permanent staff reporter.  

The Irrawaddy is a leading independent Burmese media organization founded by exiled Burmese journalists in Thailand. It reaches millions of readers worldwide in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and Southeast Asian and East Asian nations. More than 180,000 unique visitors from 200 countries access the website every month.

At The Irrawaddy, I was able to build my career, writing for domestic and international audiences. I won several journalism fellowships and internships and participated in workshops and seminars, many of which brought me to Europe, the U.S. and Southeast Asian countries.

In May 2010, I traveled to the southern Philippines to observe elections in Zamboanga City and Sulu, an autonomous Muslim region marred by religious tensions. In July of the same year, I was awarded a fellowship that took me to Jakarta to report on the democratic transition in Indonesia. In December 2010, I was selected to attend a “Human and Civil Rights” workshop in Germany organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a German foundation for liberal politics.

In February and March 2014, I was awarded a journalism fellowship by the Honolulu-based East-West Center, an institution founded by the U.S. Congress, which allowed me to travel to Honolulu for a workshop, and to Indonesia and Burma for field studies, where I met government officials and respective stakeholders. In August of the same year, I was invited by the Swedish Institute, a Swedish government agency, for a media visit in Stockholm, where I learned about democracy, integration programs and multiethnic cultures.

I am currently in the U.S. on a six-month fellowship awarded by the Alfred Friendly Press Partners, a nonprofit foundation that supports journalists from developing countries through training and placement in U.S. newsrooms. Along with this year’s other fellows, I studied at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, in Columbia. I am currently working at my fellowship placement with the Jewish Journal.

At the Journal, I see that my refugee experience is, sadly, not unique. The year 1948, when Burma achieved independence from Britain, was the year Israel won independence from Britain as well. That year, the Palestinian refugee crisis began. More recently, the Middle East has seen hundreds of thousands of refugees created by the civil war in Syria. Thousands more refugees are risking death to flee through Libya, across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.  I hope what small insights I can offer from having been a refugee myself can help others facing similar challenges.

I have journeyed a long way since crossing the Salween into Thailand 25 years ago. If I hadn’t pushed myself to take risks, I would still be locked up in the refugee camp like my classmates and friends. When my family and I sought refuge on the Thai border, we thought the conflict would be short-lived and that we would return home shortly. However, this was a distant dream — the war has lasted for decades, and many of the refugees have spent their entire lives in the camps. As for my family, my parents and one sister are still in a camp, while two of my siblings reside in the United States. 

However, beginning in 2005, many refugees began entering countries other than Burma or Thailand — including the U.S. — through a resettlement program managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They left to start a new life, realizing there was no hope of returning to Burma, and that their future — and that of the following generations — in the camps is bleak. In Thailand, there is no hope for refugees to ever obtain citizenship, whereas in some of these other countries they have at least a chance of getting work and, eventually, citizenship. 

From 2005 to 2014, more than 80,000 Burmese refugees, mostly ethnic Karen, resettled in various countries; about 70,000 of them are in the U.S. Others have settled in Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. 

Yet there are still approximately 120,000 refugees in camps in Thailand, all of whom continue to face uncertainty. Many countries have decreased or stopped recruiting refugees, believing that the ongoing peace process in Burma offers hope for the refugees’ return. Also, the Thai government has been accelerating repatriation since 2012, when the Burmese government and ethnic Karen rebels signed a cease-fire agreement. 

But none of these parties can guarantee lasting peace or the safety and security of the refugees. Instead, the Burmese government and ethnic Karen rebels continue to strengthen their military capabilities and entrench their forces while talking peace. Very few refugees have revisited their villages to see whether it is safe for them to return, and none have returned to Burma permanently. 

The Burmese government and ethnic Karen rebels have failed to maintain a sustainable peace several times in the past, resulting in the breakdown of cease-fires that each time have forced thousands of refugees to be displaced. These refugees, like those who fled before them, now find themselves at a crossroads, as they can neither return home in safety nor resettle in many of the countries that had, for a brief time, been open to them.

Saw Yan Naing, 30, is an ethnic Karen journalist from Myanmar who is currently on a prestigious fellowship with the Alfred Friendly Press Partners, interning at the Jewish Journal. You can reach him at naing@presspartners.org.