UNHCR cuts allowance of Burma refugees in India

Mizzima News: 24 April, 2002

New Delhi: Hundreds of Burma refugees living in New Delhi under the mandate of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) face the survival problem due to the sudden cut of their monthly allowance by the UNHCR Office in India.

The National Council of Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) has started informing the refugees that they no longer enjoy the subsistence allowance from the office. The reason provided was: the refugees are earning some income and thus they can depend on themselves.

It has come as a shock for the Burma refugees who survive in India with the financial support from UNHCR.

“It is not fair that they just informed me like that suddenly, saying that I would not get SA (Subsistence Allowance) for this month”, an angry Burma refugee told Mizzima. “They said that I can now stand on my own and therefore they cut the allowance. But it is not true. My family and I have to depend on UNHCR’s SA for our survival”, he added.

About forty Burma refugees are already informed by the YMCA about the SA-cut in the past one-week.

The YMCA Refugees Assistance Program is a partner of the UNHCR Office in India in the monthly assistance for the Burma refugees. It has an office in Vikas Puri (west Delhi) where most of the Burma refugees live in rented houses.

There are more than one thousand Burma refugees including some two hundred children living in Delhi. Most of them struggle to survive with a monthly allowance of Indian Rupees 1,400 (about US $30) per month per person provided by the UNHCR. They fled Burma due to the danger of political persecution and human rights abuses committed by the ruling military junta.

With this drastic action of UNHCR, many Burma refugees are cut out of their only source of income in India.