Up to a million people have fled their homes in eastern Burma in a crisis the world has largely ignored.

Burma's refusal to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and the boycotting of the constitutional convention this month by the main opposition, has thrust Burma into the spotlight again.

But unseen and largely unremarked is the ongoing harrowing experience of hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Burma, hiding in the jungle or trapped in army-controlled relocation sites. Others are in refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-
1. Food Security from a Rights-based Perspective;
2. Local Observations from the States and Divisions
of Eastern Burma:-
2.1 Tenasserim Division
(Committee for Internally Displaced Karen Persons);
2.2 Mon State (Mon Relief and Development Committee);
2.3 Karen State (Karen Human Rights Group)
2.4 Eastern Pegu Division (Karen Office of Relief and Development);
2.5 Karenni State (Karenni Social Welfare Committee);
2.6 Shan State (Shan Human Rights Foundation)...

Deportation from Thailand of Burmese migrants, half of whom are women

...In the last four years, the Burmese army based in Mon State has confiscated thousands acres of farmland. The farmers whose land had been confiscated were not given any compensation. They have no opportunity to take legal actions against the army. As a result, many farmers who lost their lands left to Thailand to seek employment. Those who stayed in villages and towns became landless and jobless..." Land confiscation by the Burmese military - description, analysis and case studies.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) has been collaborating with ethnic community-based organisations to document the characteristics of internal displacement in eastern Burma since 2002. This year's research updates estimates of the scale and distribution of internal displacement, and documents the impacts of militarization and state-sponsored development, based on quantitative surveys with key informants in 38 townships.

A new report by the Karenni Civil Society Network (KCSN) raises concerns about
international “peace support” programming amid
st increasing Burma Army militarization in
Karenni State after the2012 ceasefire with the
Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP).
The report “Where is Genuine Peace?” exposes how a pilot resettlement project of the
Norway-led Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI) in Shardaw
Township is encouraging
IDPs to return to an area controlled by the Burma Army where their safety cannot be
guaranteed.

Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District. Based on interviews and field reports from KHRG field researchers in this northern Karen district, looks at the phenomenon of 'Peace Villages' under SPDC control and 'Hiding Villages' in the hills; while the 'Hiding Villages' are being systematically destroyed and their villagers hunted and captured, the 'Peace Villages' face so many demands for forced labour and extortion that many ofthem are fleeing to the hills.

This Situation Update describes events and issues occurring in Bu Tho Township, Hpapun District during the period between November 2014 to January 2015, including illegal logging, punishment, education, and livelihoods...

In C--- village, Pa Heh village tract, primary school students who did not pass the examinations were punished by their teacher who made them sit down and stand up 500 to 1,000 times...

Karen National Union (KNU) soldiers arrested two people found on a bamboo raft carrying logs which had been cut down on November 3rd 2014...

Burmese residents of a US city still find it hard to escape the politics of their homeland...

"Than Myint arrived in the “land of opportunities” as a refugee nine years ago, together with her husband and children. A native of Rangoon, Than Myint now lives in Fort Wayne, a city of some 200,000 people in the US state of Indiana. Now in her late 50s, she has learned how to survive and lead a satisfactory life in the US—the kind of existence she would never have been able to enjoy in Burma...

Global forced displacement has seen accelerated growth in 2014,
once again reaching unprecedented levels. The year saw the highest
displacement on record. By end-2014, 59.5 million individuals
were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict,
generalized violence, or human rights violations. This is 8.3 million
persons more than the year before (51.2 million) and the highest
annual increase in a single year.

More than 10,000 Burmese migrants in Thailand’s Mae La refugee camp could soon be resettled in the US...

"It could be a scene from a travel trade show—a crowd of mostly young people clusters in front of poster boards bearing pictures of life in the US. These are no tourists, however, but Burmese refugees in Thailand hoping to resettle in the US and eager for any illustration of what they can expect to find there...

As thousands of Karen wait in resettlement camps, others already settled in foreign lands discover new challenges to their future...

Heh Nay Thaw has lived in refugee camps in Thailand for nearly a quarter-century since he crossed the border from Burma with his family at age five. He is now 29, with a wife and two children, and the long years of waiting for a permanent home may soon be over.

Like many of his fellow Karen, Heh Nay Thaw gave up hope that he could ever return to Karen State and applied for resettlement outside Asia—possibly in the US.