Military harassment forces aid group out of Thai camp
Updated
The international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres has ended its relief program for refugees in northern Thailand - blaming what it calls the Thai military's scare tactics.
MSF has been in the Huai Nam Khao camp in Petchabun province since 2005 - where it assists several thousand ethnic Lao Hmong refugees. The Thai and Lao governments claim the Hmong are illegal economic migrants but the refugees say they fled persecution at the hands of the Lao government. Their presence in Thailand is a sore point in bilateral relations between the two countries and Thailand says it wants to repatriate the refugees, either back to their homeland or for third-country settlement. MSF says the military has been pressuring the refugees to return to Laos, cutting food distributions and forcing patients to pass through military control to obtain medical care.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Gilles Isard, head of mission in Thailand for Medicins Sans Frontieres
