A diplomatic team visits Mae La refugee camp to ask residents there if they want to go back home to Myanmar. (Photo by Assawin Pinitwong)TAK – A total of 108 Myanmar residents of Mae La refugee camp in Tha Song Yang district have decided to return home. Members of 28 families said they wanted to go back to their original hometown, Suebpong Nimpoonsawat, chief of Tha Song Yang district, said on Monday. Officials from Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Myanmar embassy have visited the camp on the Thai-Myanmar border whose occupants are mainly ethnic Karen from Myanmar. Since the election in Myanmar in 2016, the government led by president Ktin Kyaw and state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has worked with the Thai government to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Myanmar refugees living along the border.

Source: Bangkok Post July 10, 2017 04:41 UTC