Karen person, according to her home, died at home four weeks after being released from a shuttered center.
PUBLISHED: 7 Feb 2025 at 21: 43
A migrant who had heart problems died after being discharged from a US-funded clinics on the Myanmar-Thai borders after being forced to close due to US President Donald Trump’s ice on international support, her family said.
Pe Kha Lau, 71, passed away on Sunday after suffering from exhaustion for four weeks after returning from a medical facility that was funded by the US through the International Rescue Committee.
After receiving a” stop-work” get from the US State Department, the IRC closed and locked clinics in some refugee camps, according to people and aid workers.
We offer our condolences to Pe Kha Lau’s family and friends, according to a spokeswoman for IRC, according to Reuters.
A request for comment was never instantly received by the US embassy in Bangkok.
The US’s largest humanitarian donor, Trump, has started to halt almost all of its aid efforts and has begun to dismantle its main delivery system, the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ).  ,
According to reports from Washington, the firm’s global workforce will be reduced from about 10,000 to 300.
While Trump’s presidency reviews all foreign aid programs, the wasting freeze is supposed to last 90 days when it comes into effect on January 20. Trump and businessman Elon Musk had both claimed that the move is necessary to stop wasteful spending and is in line with his plan to reduce the federal government.
Tens of thousands of refugees who were living in mountain tents along the Thai border were able to return to Myanmar through the IRC services. The region has been in conflict since 2021, when the military retakes control of an elected government, and the conflict has since resulted in the displacement of more than 3.5 million people, according to the UN.
Pe Kha Lau’s home claims that she had been in the hospital for three years and lacked oxygen supply.
When she fell ill at house on Saturday evening, she asked to go back to the doctor, her daughter Yin Yin Aye, 50, told Reuters through grief.
” I had to show her that there is no hospital”, she said by telephone.
An IRC spokesperson recently told Reuters that people of the immigrant community had” self-organised” to ensure critical solutions for their societies while aid help was being” transitioned” to Thai officials. ( Story continues below )
Pretty poor folks
Before the doctor closed, Pe Kha Lau’s son-in-law, Tin Win, said “whenever she got short of breath, I would take her straight away again to doctor and she would be good”.
” We are extremely bad people”, he said. ” I work as a morning employee. We can’t manage gas at home”, he said.
He claimed that the institutions ‘ closings resulted in the deaths of several other immigrants. Reuters was unable to verify his profile.
Because of the sensitive nature of the situation, a native Thai health official who requested anonymity claimed that some sufferers received oxygen tanks when the facilities were closed but that there weren’t enough.
Umpiem station, a distant hill camp, was the main point of health care for the IRC facilities.
With the IRC facilities immediately shut, midwives moved labouring women to a previous school, where an 18-year-old migrant gave birth on Feb 1 amid inadequate facilities, a sibling and a schoolteacher said.
Thai officials and refugee groups are scrambling to fill the void while state-run hospitals treat the refugees as a result of the lack of US foreign aid.
Aid efforts across the globe have been crippled by the Trump administration’s freeze, including the intricate system that helps prevent and respond to famine, according to humanitarian organisations.