Some 90,000 Myanmarese refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border. At the height of displacement in the early 1990s, the camps held more than 130,000 refugees.
People already in the camps have watched humanitarian groups come and go over the years, though in recent times aid workers have mostly moved on to newer crises, leaving a chronic shortage of assistance for the refugees. What hasn’t declined is the commitment of the Catholic Church to accompany people in the camps. Father Nyareh said when Pope Francis mentioned refugees from Myanmar in his speech for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees Sept. 25, his words echoed among Burmese of all faiths.