May 24, 20242 yr From Malaysia Sun Bangkok - Interviews have begun with Myanmar refugees living in Thailand who are eligible for a new resettlement program in the United States, the Thai government said. Thailand said it hopes the first group may get to move by the end of the year. Some 90,000 refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic minority rebel armies vying for autonomy. Some of the refugees were born in the camps, which started to form in the mid-1980s, and many have lived in them for decades. Persistent fighting in Myanmar, amplified by a military coup in February 2021, has kept most from returning home. Aiming to give the refugees a safe way out of the camps, Thailand, the United States and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced the resettlement plan in May 2023. One year on, Thailand's Ministry of Interior says that the Thai government and UNHCR have finished checking the personal information of the refugees to verify their eligibility for the program. More than 80,000 refugees were deemed eligible, and nearly all of them told officials they wanted to resettle. "After that, the U.S. team went to the first two camps for interviews, which have already been done," Zcongklod Khawjang, an interior ministry official in charge of overseeing the resettlement program, told VOA this week.
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