Away from Home, They Brought Myanmar With Them

As refugees, asylum seekers, exiles or people waiting it out in other countries after Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the newest additions to the country’s huge diaspora are grappling with anxiety while away, taking up junior jobs, sending financial aid home and to the anti-coup resistance – and hoping their time away is temporary .

Johanna Son

UNHCR: ’No One Chooses To Be A Refugee’

More people are being displaced by conflict and insecurity in Myanmar after the February coup, having to cross the border to Thailand, or waiting for the chance to do so. But Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. What does this mean for those whose life and safety are under threat after the coup?

Johanna Son

ASEAN’s Role on Rakhine: Big Outside, Little Known in Myanmar

ASEAN has been testing its non-intervention habit in ways never done before, playing what is to date its biggest, most active role in relation to Myanmar’s handling of the Rohingya issue. But ASEAN’s role is little known or cared for inside the country, where the mainstream attitude is usually apathy or hostility to this minority community. Aung Zaw Min looks into why this so, in this feature for the Reporting ASEAN series.

From Laos to Bangladesh: Notes from A Rohingya Refugee Camp

For Lao film producer Vannaphone Sitthirath, a two-hour visit to the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh leads to reflections about the gift of having options in life, and questions about practices like polygamy. She shares these thoughts in this article for the Reporting ASEAN series.

For Urban Asylum Seekers, Uncertainty is the Certainty

A permanent state of uncertainty is how life is for asylum seekers and urban refugees in Bangkok and other Southeast Asian cities. Often invisible in the cities they live in, they cannot work legally and do not have papers to stay for long periods of time, even if the process of seeking asylum takes years, reports Johanna Son*.

Looking for ‘ASEAN Way’ in the Rohingya Crisis

ASEAN has more credibility with Myanmar than other countries. But what ‘ASEAN way’ can it pull out of its hat to find a relevant, effective role in the humanitarian and political disaster flowing from the Rakhine state and refugee flows of mainly Rohingya people? Johanna Son looks at ASEAN’s options in this article published in the ‘Bangkok Post’.