Two Karen refugee boys enjoy their day in Thailand.
Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved
According to a news item that appeared July 8 2009 online at BangkokPost.com
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About 3,000 Karen have fled across the border to Tha Song Yang district of Tak province to escape fighting in Burma, Third Army Region commander Lt-Gen Tanongsak Apirakyothin said on Monday.
He said Burmese government and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) soldiers are attacking positions held by the Karen National Union (KNU) along the Thai-Burmese border.
Thailand has provided the refugees with humanitarian assistance including food, shelter and medicine to prevent illness. The fighting has so far been limited to the Burmese side of the border and no artillery rounds have landed on Thai soil, said Lt-Gen Tanongsak.
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These are the types of stories that gain very little traction in the mainstream media. Why? People are more interested in celebrity driven news items even if they are coming out of Burma (Myanmar).
It's easier to sell magazines and newspapers reporting about the imprisonment of Burmese (Myanmar) pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after a strange American man went to her house to "sleep over" than the story 3,000 Karen people who more than likely escaped through live fire.
Aung San Suu Kyi 's story "has legs" as she was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and it contains a bizarre American angle.
Just what is a Karen anyway?
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
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