Myanmar refugees on the brink as funding cuts bite: ‘I feel so anxious’
Last Updated on August 13, 2025 9:17 pm
By Janelle Ling and Taryn Ng
On the first day of every month, refugees in camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border would usually receive a top-up of credits to their digital food cards before making a beeline for food-card shops to stock up on groceries.
On August 1, however, the shops stood quiet. Not a single queue formed outside.
In Mae La camp – the largest of nine along the Thai border – Naw Wah Nay Paw, a worried storekeeper, stands among unsold bottles of cooking oil and cans of fish neatly arranged in rows. Most refugees have not received a single baht in their food cards for this month.
“Sometimes people who are struggling ask me for food. I feel so anxious about what is going to happen tomorrow,” the 40-year-old said. “If people stop buying supplies from me, I might lose my shop.”
US President Donald Trump’s move in January to cut nearly US$9 billion in foreign humanitarian aid has resulted in global health programmes under the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – the American government’s humanitarian-aid coordinating body – facing critical shortfalls in food and healthcare services.
Among the foreign aid cuts were US$800 million for a programme providing emergency shelter, water and family reunification for refugees and US$496 million to provide food, water and healthcare for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. Also cancelled was US$4.15 billion for programmes that aimed to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations, according to the Associated Press.
Former US leaders Barack Obama and George W. Bush slammed Trump’s dismantling of USAID, which closed its doors at the end of June. The agency, created in 1961 to promote American soft power and goodwill, had provided aid to help people out of poverty and prevent disease outbreaks, among other global initiatives.
Indonesian lawmaker Mercy Chriesty Barends, who is also chairwoman of the Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights, decried the funding cuts as “a collapse of humanity”.
In a statement last month, she said: “We are abandoning people who have already been abandoned by the world too many times.”
The impact of the USAID cuts has been felt far and wide. Among those affected include The Border Consortium (TBC), which stopped issuing food credits for most refugees along the Thailand-Myanmar border on July 31. TBC had been providing monthly food assistance since the 1980s.
Until December, only the 7,000 “most vulnerable” refugees – those without income or outside financial support – across nine camps will continue receiving 400 baht (US$12) and basic rations such as rice, cooking oil and yellow beans.
All refugees are sorted by a four-tier aid system set by camp leaders to prioritise need. The remaining 101,000 refugees who fall under the other tiers of self-reliant, standard and vulnerable are left to fend for themselves. With no credits, they can only pay for food in cash.
Mounting cuts
As hostel prefect, 20-year-old college student Saw Ru Ghay buys food for 58 students in his Mae La dormitory. The majority are among the camp’s most vulnerable and still receive about 400 baht in monthly food credits.
He pools together these credits to buy 15 sacks of rice. Each 50kg (110lbs) sack feeds the dorm students for two days. With no promised aid after December, he saves a portion of credits each month.
But the money is depleting. Since March, TBC has cut food aid by up to 75 per cent for all but the most vulnerable.
Among those affected is Naw Blai Paw, 62, who has eight mouths in her family to feed. She earns a small income from working at a clothing shop in the camp but says it is hardly enough.
Business has slowed since the cuts. Paw now sees one customer every few days, compared with three a day previously.
“We still have some rice at home, but by the end of the month we will not have food,” she said. When asked what her family would do next, she merely shrugged. Refugees are not allowed to leave the camp to work.
Healthcare in the camps has also come under strain. In Umpiem Mai, where 14,000 refugees live, the camp’s hospital has become a ghost town. Empty beds line the wards and consultation rooms sit unused.
The hospital serves the second-largest refugee population along the border. Apart from those with critical illnesses or requiring emergency care, all patients in the inpatient department were sent home.
This followed the International Rescue Committee (IRC) shutting down its operations in camps including Umpiem Mai and Mae La on July 31. The humanitarian group had supported refugees from Myanmar in Thai camps since the first arrivals in 1975.
“Normally, we provide patients with two meals a day. Now they have to buy their own food,” said medical supervisor Ni Lar Win.
Hospital director Zaw Tigh bemoaned the lack of supplies. “We have to run our hospital for our community, but we have no fresh supplies,” he said.
With IRC’s exit, nurses without pharmacy training, such as 29-year-old Susannah, have been reassigned to ration the remaining medical supplies.
“We cannot find where the medicine is, but the whole department is dependent on us,” she said. “Patients come to ask for their medication every day, but we don’t have it.”
IRC did not respond to queries and TBC declined to comment, citing ongoing discussions with the Thai government and donors.
Hunger and learning
Educators fear the children at the camps will be most affected by the halt in food support.
“When the children go to school hungry, how can they learn something? The issues are intertwined,” said Nelson Mandela Centre researcher Andrew Wai Phyo Kyaw.
With food support halted, parents are more likely to send children outside the camps to work illegally than to school, according to Mae La’s education coordinator, Saw Harold Lum.
“I feel bad for the kids’ future,” he said. “It’s been 40 years and they still have no legal status. There’s no solution for them.”
Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) chairman Saw Robert Htwe, whose organisation represents refugees, said his five decades of experience did not prepare him for the scale of the USAID cuts.
“What can I do? I worry for the education, I worry for the healthcare, and I worry for the camp management,” he said.
KRC is in talks with the Thai government, but there have been no concrete plans yet.
Since June, it has supplied each of its 4,000 camp staff – including educators, healthcare workers and camp committee members – with 5kg of rice a month. But it is still not enough, according to Htwe.
Rice support for staff after November depends on whether KRC gets funding then. “Many of the teachers told me, ‘If we can’t get the support for food, we cannot continue teaching’.”
Janelle Ling is a final-year student at Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Singapore.
Taryn Ng is a final-year student at Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Singapore.