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The Hidden Hunger of Refugees Along the Thailand–Myanmar Border

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  More than 100,000 refugees from Myanmar are living in a state of invisibility along the Thailand–Myanmar border . They are stateless, have no legal right to work, no access to formal education for their children, and no guarantee of daily food. Many of them have fled ethnic and religious persecution yet remain unrecognized by any government. As a result, they are denied even the most basic human rights—such as the right to food. This is not a distant humanitarian crisis. It is a “ silent emergency ” unfolding in one of the most visited countries in Asia: Thailand. A Crisis of Identity, A Crisis of Survival According to the latest data from UNHCR (May 2025), there are 1.485 million refugees from Myanmar worldwide. In Thailand, approximately 82,400 refugees currently reside in temporary shelters along the Thailand–Myanmar border—most of whom arrived before February 2021. However, tens of thousands remain outside the system, undocumented and unprotected. Many are Karen or Karenni, w...
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Restoring the Right to Live: Education for Forgotten Children at the Thai Myanmar Border

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  “Some children are born without a name in any system. No birth certificate. No right to go to school. Not even the right to exist openly. They didn’t choose to be born into war, but they’ve been running from bombs and gunfire for as long as they can remember.” Though they have survived war, these children still live hidden in the shadows of the law. They are stateless children , without legal identity, safety, education, or a future. This is not a scene from a war film—it is the reality of thousands of children along the Thai Myanmar border who have been forgotten. Fleeing the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, countless boys, girls, and mothers have crossed into Thailand illegally. While they may have escaped bullets, they now face another silent, deadly, and enduring war—the war of inequality in rights . These children have no legal documents, no birth registration, and thus no access to the basic human rights that every child should have. Many refugee children living in border villa...
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The War and Poverty Have Robbed the Lives of Displaced Children

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  When the Sound of Bombs Destroys a Generation's Future In some parts of the world, children wake up to the sound of alarm clocks to go to school. But on the other side of the border, many children wake up to gunfire, explosions, and the screams of people fleeing for their lives. One night in Karen State, Myanmar, an eight-year-old girl was carried away from her home in the middle of a blazing fire. She couldn’t remember grabbing anything with her—only the clothes on her back and her mother’s tightly gripped hand. When they reached the Thai side, she no longer cried. She was too exhausted to have any tears left. That marked the beginning of a new life with no home, no citizenship, and no word for “school.” That child has a name... but no future. She doesn’t know the word “teacher,” has never held a book, never stood in line for the national anthem, never heard the school bell ring. No one has ever asked her what she wants to be when she grows up—because the adults around her are j...
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The Last Meal… or the Beginning of Hope

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  An article by Avoda Foundation Refugee family. “If only we had just one more meal… and a helping hand, maybe my child wouldn’t have to fall asleep tonight with an empty stomach.” The sobs of a mother still echo in our hearts as we recall distributing food along the Thai-Myanmar border, in a nameless village marked by loss and hopelessness. For some, “hunger” is just a temporary discomfort between meals. But for thousands of children fleeing war in Karen State, hunger is a constant companion—an enemy that kills without a single bullet. At Avoda Foundation , we have witnessed firsthand that “food” is not just for filling stomachs. It is survival. It is faith. It is a chance to escape despair. Through our Food Aid mission, we have spent years providing emergency meals and nutrition to displaced Karen refugees—families without homes, fleeing persecution, war, and poverty. Some families have 5 to 6 young children, no income, and no land to cultivate. The only thing they wait for each...
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