The Border Consortium (TBC), the organisation responsible for distributing food aid to the refugee camps in Thailand on the border with Myanmar, has confirmed that from April 2025 aid will be significantly reduced due to funding shortfalls.
TBC has already notified the nine refugee camps along the border in Thailand where it supplies food aid, that due to the funding shortfalls the amount of money it will be able to give to refugees for buying food will be reduced for the months of April to July.
Not all refugees at the camps receive food aid. Any refugee family with a combined income of 5,000 Thai Baht (THB) a month or more does not receive food aid.
But, two groups that earn less money are supplied with food aid. These are termed the standard household group (STD) which are families with a combined income of between 1,000 and 5,000 THB (about 29.46 USD to 147.30 USD) a month and the vulnerable (V) and most vulnerable (MV) groups which are refugee families earning less than 1,000 THB a month. These include the poorest and most vulnerable families in the camps, such as families with no income, female-headed households experiencing financial hardships, widows, individuals with chronic illnesses, and the elderly.
According to TBC of these groups, the hardest hit will be the STD group. Refugees in this group will see their food aid reduced by about 75 per cent.
Prior to these cuts, all adults in the STD group in all of the camps on the Thai border where TBC provides food aid who had no other income received 322 THB (about 7.00 USD) a month to buy food. Children aged from six months to five years in this group previously received 203 THB (about 6.00/USD) a month.
Now the adults in the STD group will only receive food aid of 84 THB (about 2.48 USD) a month and the children under five in that group will only receive 51 THB (about 1.50 USD) a month food aid.
Aid reductions will vary slightly from camp to camp, depending on factors such as location and transportation difficulties
The amount of food aid that will be provided from April by TBC to refugees in the STD group living in Mae La, the largest of the refugee camps, will be even less. Adults in the STD group living in Mae La will receive only 77 THB (about 2.27 USD) a month and the children under five will only receive 47 THB (about 1.39 USD) a month.
Adult refugees from the V and MV groups previously received 388 THB a month food assistance whilst children under five in those groups received 203 THB (about 6.00 USD) Because they are so vulnerable and poor their aid has only been cut by about 10 per cent, according to Saw Kyaw Waw, an official at Nupo refugee camp.
He said: “It's not feasible to cut food aid to families in the V and MV groups by a large amount. That's why their aid was only reduced by 10 percent. Some families in the STD group have complained about this decision. We want to make it clear that this is not a decision made by us, the camp committee, but rather a direct instruction from TBC. All we can do is present the concerns of the camp residents when the TBC officials arrive.”
Starting in 2016, TBC introduced a card-based system of food distribution in Tham Hin and Nupo camps, before introducing it in 2019 to all the nine camps in Thailand on the Myanmar border.
Families who are entitled to assistance receive food aid cards and TBC then transfers their monthly aid allowance on to the cards which can be used in shops in the refugee camps to purchase from a selection of around 40 designated food items.
According to TBC, there are about 10,800 people living in refugee camps in Thailand on the border with Myanmar and it costs an average of 1.3 million USD a month to support them.
TBC has warned that the cuts in aid could lead to severe consequences for the refugees and is calling for donations on its website and social media pages.
