Junta is to close about 25 camps of Internationally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kachin State which is a Christian Majority state in Myanmar. As a result, more than 11,000 people will be in the lurch.
The army has reportedly ordered their inhabitants to leave by March-end, according to local sources.
The camps house more than 11,000 people and have been run by Catholic and Baptist churches since 2011, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The inhabitants were given three options — to return to their places of origin, to move to a new resettlement area, or make their own arrangements, the sources said.
Myanmar’s transition from full military rule started in 2011, spurring hopes of democratic reforms. But the military, known as the Tatmadaw, maintained control over much of the civilian government, and ethnic armed outfits, comprising Buddhists and Christians, resisted it.
According to UCA News, more than 101,500 people are staying in camps in Kachin State, including 11,900 people who were displaced by the military coup in 2021, the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said in a report on 16 February. The state’s 1.7 million people are mainly Christians, including 116,000 Catholics.
The military junta has also reportedly ordered IDPs in the camps in northern Shan, Chin and Rakhine states to return to their native places.
More than 1,619,000 people have been uprooted across the country, with more than 328,000 people displaced since the military coup on 1 February 2021, according to the latest UNHCR report.