04/01/2012 China (ChinaAid) – Recently, a group of Christians from a house church in Guangzhou, in south China’s Guangdong province, went to Yunnan to visit the Kachin (Jingpo) refugees and to bring relief supplies.
On March 16, the two men and four women flew from Guangzhou to Tengchong, Yunnan province, with a change of planes in the Yunnan capital of Kunming. They then drove about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the town of Nabang in the county of Jingjiang on the China-Myanmar border, where they conducted three days of interviews and looked into the situation at two refugee camps of Christians of the Jingpo minority group. They delivered a total of 10 tons of Christian-donated humanitarian aid supplies, including clothing, potatoes and rice, directly into the hands of the Jingpo Christians at the refugee camps.
The Myanmar junta’s policy of war has resulted in at least 50,000 Kachins (Jingpo) fleeing their homes and becoming refugees. They have flooded to the China-Myanmar border, which now has more than 40 refugee camps. The two camps we visited were in the best condition compared with other camps located in the forests where transportation is difficult and conditions more adverse. The sporadic humanitarian aid the refugees have received from some Christian individuals is far from sufficient to meet the massive needs of these refugees who are struggling to survive. Nine months have passed since the war broke out last June and peace is nowhere in sight. It will soon be the rainy season, and the makeshift plastic structures of the refugee camps are already worn out. Some Christian refugees told us that when it rains, their entire family is unable to lie down to sleep at night. They can only pass the night either standing or squatting.
We hope China’s Christian house churches, which are estimated to have more than 10 million members, and the urban house churches in particular, will show their concern for the plight of the Christians in the Jingpo refugee camps. Below is a report of our observations from this trip.
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