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For many decades, Myanmar has faced a constant compounding of suffering. War. Rebel forces from Kurini state attack a Juna outpost at a monastery in January 2025 with as many as 2,600 armed groups fighting across Myanmar. Earthquakes. The earthquake flattened many buildings in Myanmar. But relief efforts will be complicated by the continuing civil war and so-called scam factories. It starts with an attractive job offer abroad and it ends in modern slavery. Thousands are trafficked here and forced to scam people in China, the US and Europe. There are a few compounds like this in the area. Because of these events, millions have fled Myanmar, many of whom jumping the border into Thailand. In this video, I'll be
following the border between Myanmar and Thailand, meeting people who have fled from Myanmar and hearing their stories. Today we're going to be driving from here in Mesa, the capital of the Tuck region of Thailand. We're going to be following the border of Myanmar, just over the border from here. There's absolutely horrific things going on that words can only begin to describe. It's unimaginable the hardships that a lot of the people from Myanmar are facing and are fleeing from. There's huge displacement camps here of people that have fled from hardships and have been fleeing for a long time, but it has ramped up more recently. So, let's jump in the car and see who we can meet and what stories they have to tell.
We're actually sitting below a huge factory and a big landfill dump site. So, you can see these shacks are right up against the factory wall here. In this factory, they actually dispose of toxic water waste, something to do with plastic waste, and that goes underground here. So, the people really struggle with access to clean drinking water in these slums. One of the hardest things they face. They collect rain water here from the roof and then this is where the kids bathe. So the question is how bad is it in Myanmar right now if people are willing to flee to a place like this? A toxic waste ground bathing in that dirty water there you saw where the kids bathe next to giant factory with toxic chemicals
leeching out into the ground. It's clearly a question of life or death. We're going to meet some of the people before we head out into deeper areas closer to the border. are going to be going right to the border very soon. These people are fleeing their villages being bombed and burned down. There was a huge earthquake recently in Myanmar that wiped out so much infrastructure. And not to mention on top of that is these crime organizations running out of Myanmar. It's rumored that these scam factories in Myanmar bring in more money than the drug trade in Southeast Asia. And Southeast Asia is one of the main distribution regions in the world for heroin. This area of Thailand is
absolutely saturated with Burmese that have fled from Myanmar because of the fighting. There's parts that we're going today where on some days you can even see fighter jets flying very close. It's a pretty crazy situation and most people don't really think about that when they think of Thailand. You know, Thailand's a beautiful country, one of my favorite countries in the world, but there is some hidden darkness along the border here. Okay. So, we're here with Nyam Mo and you're showing us around. You're originally from Burma, right? There are some fightings around the other arm groups, bombings and air strikes and fire. You know, many people were injured and some people died.
You would might have had to go and fight and use weapons and things and you didn't want to do that, right? Yeah. If you live in probably you have to take the gun and you know to against your enemies. So kind of that. So I for as for me I don't want to do that. So I just want to stay peaceful. You didn't want to fight and people so you left. Yeah. I left. And what happened to your village? Was it attacked? Yeah. Um drone attacked. I mean drone. Drones. Really? Yeah. A mortar. A big gun. Mort. They fire. Yeah. Mortars. They fire in our villages. So until now my parents you know they have to move to another places to flee the you know the air
strike or the drones attack. So your parents in Myanmar are currently moving from place to avoid being killed. Yes. Yes been killed. Do you know anybody that personally that has been killed? One of my friends you know your friend was killed. Yeah. By a mortar. Sorry.
Do you see any hope for Myanmar for peace? Yeah. Um, we are waiting for the time, you know, to be peaceful and that time, you know, from and I will go back to my hometown and see peaceful life. So that is what I want in the more what I want in my life. Would you mind introducing us to this lady? Her name is Kim Wing. Nice to meet you. I'm Nick. And why did you come here? They're wanted in Myar. They're wanted in Myanmar. Okay. Her parents and her children, her husband, they all moved to here because they trying to escape from them. And so you can make good money here.
[clears throat] 280 for a day here. Everyone wants to go back to their home. Based on the situation, they cannot go back. So, we've come up to this viewpoint looking over the hills here. And this might look like any normal viewpoint, but in the background, that's actually Myanmar. And if you look in the distance, you can see some buildings with red roofs. That is actually one of the scam centers. People are human traffked from all over the world, English-speaking people, Africa, China, and they're lured into Thailand under the false pretense that they are going to be working a job, that they're qualified. These are often educated
people. As soon as they arrive in Bangkok, they're smuggled out here. They cross the border at night on boats across the river. A river is the border between Myanmar and Thailand. And they're taken to these scam centers. It's pretty hard to grasp because it looks like such a beautiful, calm, peaceful place, which it is, but at the same time on the other side, anything but peaceful. So, we've been driving for a couple of hours now, and you can see in the background the mountains on the other side of the river there. That is Myanmar. So, a lot of people fleeing crossing the border by crossing the river. come over here for a hope of a better life or purely just out of survival. Going to continue down and
we're going to try and meet some people that have fled from there and see what kind of lives they're living now and see what they've escaped. Thailand is such a beautiful, beautiful country. The drive is absolutely stunning. But mixed in with that is a lot of people fleeing unimaginable situations over the river there. Okay. So, we're here with Plateau who you fled from Myanmar. You can see behind us that's your country, right? Yeah. You've come across the river for a better life and to survive essentially, right? Right. My village is very small and it's very far away from here.
Okay. How far? We have to walk one week. You walk for a week? Yeah. As soon as you were born like there was fighting around you. Yeah. Even my parents, grandparents. So you it's like your entire family's life there's been fighting and that fighting's got worse lately. Yeah. Got worse now. Yeah. My village was burned every year. Burned. Yeah. Like to the ground. Yeah. So they come in and they just start pouring petrol or they don't really need petrol. So dry. And so you saw people come into
your village and do this and you ran your family run. You have memories of this? Yeah. I remember when I studied grade four. Okay. How old? 12 on 13 or 13 that time. I remember we study in the school and suddenly the students came and the soldiers came and they just shooted in the classrooms and seriously you saw people shooting in the classroom. Yeah. And we just ran away and I saw my friends you die in front of me and the teachers. Yeah. But I'm lucky guy. Actually I was shot many times.
Like you've been hit? No, [screaming] shot out many times. But uh after that I thought, oh that's not a good idea to stay here anymore. And now you work for a charity, Safe Water for Every Child, which is a charity which provides clean drinking water. Yes. To kids in need, right? Yes. Wow. It's beautiful. Is there anything that you would like to say about the situation? The mama situation is never end. the fighting the problems. You obviously just want do you want peace in Myanmar? Yeah, of course. I think it's very important to have peace in my so that we for me pass is past. We cannot focus our past anymore.
Wow. We have to do recon solution. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Legend. Thanks, man. So, we've arrived at this informal school here and they set these up along the border so the kids that are fleeing from Myanmar can have some glimmer of hope for their future cuz, you know, nothing's certain and these people grow up amongst the fighting and everything. It's horrific. The stories are heavy. So this is one of the shacks where a lot of the kids live fleeing from the other side of the river. We're here with the principal Sashi. There's lots of kids here. We're in Thailand, but just over we can see Myanmar in the distance there. And a lot of the school kids come
from Myanmar fleeing from hardship. He stud the air strikes and the bombing of schools and the villages everything. You yourself are a refugee. The situation does never peace. She had to move to Thailand 15 years ago because her village was burned and then the fighting. Do you hear drones in the sky and then everybody hides underground? Is that how it works? We don't even see the drone when they fly. We don't hear it.
You don't hear it. You don't see it. see sometimes cannot hear but the dr dropped the bomb inside the school many students die. Do you think that it's going to get better or do you not see much hope said that there's 0% chance for my complete peace? You're very strong woman. Thank you so much. You're very strong. Okay. So, we've come to a local high school and we've met a local student. So, Daniel, why did you come here?
Especially his age, it's very dangerous for him because if he stays in the village, he has to go and become a soldiers. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Yeah. Good luck. So, that is Myanmar right there. So, sometimes they can hear the fighting from this side of the river. Fighter jet planes and drones dropping bombs. You wouldn't know it, would you? Absolutely beautiful, but lots of darkness mixed in. So, we're here with TWA and you're the vice principal of the school, right? Yes. And you fled from Myanmar how long ago?
Yeah. Uh 20 years ago. The fighting's worse now, right? Yeah. Yes. This school has 200 students here. Yeah. What are the main things that people are running from in like uh the fight just come and drop the bomb? Dropping bombs. Have you had family members or friends that have passed away during the war? Do you know people that like just like my grandfather? My father? Yes. Has passed away because of the fighter jets dropping the bombs. Fighter jets dropped bombs on your grandfather. Really? So sorry.
Okay. So, we're here with Mai. And Mai, you're a local student here. You're 20, right? Yeah. And what are you studying? I'm studying for pre college. Okay. Right. So, it's like getting your marks up so you can get into university. Got it. And where do you want to go to college? In Europe. Yeah. Oh, really? Do you have a country in mind? Not yet. No. Okay. Yeah, that would be amazing, right? Yeah. Are you from a small village?
I'm came from Yangon. Oh, you're from Yanggon? Oh, really? Yeah. But Yanggon's uh quite safe. No, it's not safe in terms of uh what's not safe in Yanggon. What's happening there? Fighting. Thank you so much for your time. Pleasure to meet you. Good luck. I hope to see you in Europe. All right. See you later. When people think of refugees, they think them of just generally running away from the war and the hardship and everything and looking for a better place to be. But once they get to those places, then they have to set up entire lives and they first of all have to have access to things like clean drinking water and food. Clean drinking water is
a big issue and it's it's not as easy to kind of showcase as hunger. You know, when you see hunger, it's a lot easier to kind of relate to that. But the clean drinking water one is especially hard to relate to. We just take so much for granted. I can at least speak for myself. We're out here with Water Rome. When Water Roome make water filters that are basically these portable water filters that you can just show up to any flowing river like this, put the hose in, basically a few pumps. I'm going to showcase it to you in a second. And you can have fresh drinking water, safe to drink, no diarrhea, no bacteria or any other nasty things like that.
Okay, so we've come down to the river and we've met Manguan. Hi. Who works for Water Roome. But what Rome has here is they have invented this filter where you can just basically put the hose into the water and it'll filtrate all the dirt and the bacteria and everything and then it'll give you fresh water. Right, Ming? So, we've got the hose and then you put that into the water and then you pump and flush out the dirty water and what it will do, it will collect clean water within the system. And just like that, you have fresh, safe to drink water. Yes. Do you want a bottle? Yeah, I'll try it. This is the moment of truth, right?
I'm going to drink this. Okay. I'm not going to die. Yeah. No. No, you're not going to. Okay. Promise. You imagine fleeing from your town in the jungle after terrible things are happening, hiking over mountains for days. You know, I'm only out here for a short time. I'm already sweating. You know, can you imagine how much the desire for water is? and you'll drink anything, right? So, it's important that when people get here, they have that access to the clean drinking water. It's of absolute paramount importance. So, we're here with Ruby, who's a teacher, and you've got a story about something that happened with somebody drinking bad water.
Yeah. One of my student there was no clean water. They have to drink the water from this. Just this stream, this river here. Yeah. The river here. They have to take the water from here. And they got their here from there. and some ball material also. How important is the water filter system at the school? Yeah, it's really important I think because when there is no the water filter we have to boil for the whole school. This is a lot of student here.
You know that a lot of people Yeah. 200 people for 200 people you have to buy with a really big hand and you have to wait it to cool down from the water. This is really difficult. Not sustainable. Yeah. It is not sustainable. Now you have the water room system. Then anybody can just drink whenever they want. Wow. That's amazing. That's really amazing for us. You're a teacher at the school, but you're also originally you fled from Myanmar as well, right? Because of the fighting.
Yeah. Right. Thank you so much, Ruby. I appreciate your time. Thank Yeah, it sounds good. I was invited out here by the Zed Sustainability Prize, which is a global award that supports organizations creating real life-changing impact in health, food, water, energy, and climate action. They invited me out here to showcase the amazing work that Water Rome is doing as Water Rome won the Zad Sustainability Prize in 2022. And by gaining that recognition, it empowered them to be able to support these people who have fled from Myanmar. So, a huge thank you to the Zad Sustainability Prize for supporting these people where it's needed most. You can see here behind me they've got the pipes that feed into the water and they
have a gravity system. So these pipes go up to this building. So there's the pipes down at the river that come up to the water filter system here all the way up here into this filter fresh drinking water. So can you tell us a bit about yourself and a bit about water roam and how it correlates to the desired sustainability prize? Oh, hi. I'm Dr. Wong Yuan. I'm originally from China. Uh, I did my bachelor's study in China and after that I came to Singapore to do my master's and PhD. I graduated as doctor in water treatment in the year of 2022 and I joined water room company as a research and development manager. So my role in water is to develop our technology like our filters. People who really need the clean water are usually
the group of people who cannot afford the treatment systems. This kinds of motivate me after my graduation that we should work more for people who really has the need. So that I join water company. I really want to give thanks because the year of 2022 when I joined water room was the year uh water room won Z sustainability prize. It was a very important moment for us and Z sustainability prize really give us um big support and it brings huge encouragement to our team. All the kids of all ages fleeing from hardships can have that access along with the education. So you know it's really a beautiful initiative. So that was my trip along the border. Of course, this is an ongoing situation and the people of Myanmar have
an uphill battle. But it's always heartwarming to see initiatives that are helping them on the ground level with things that are absolutely vital like water. Water isn't a luxury. It's a human right. And small actions like what water are doing here go a very long way. Thanks for joining me. My heart goes to the people of Myanmar. I really hope for peace. I'll see you in my next video and thank you so much for watching. In case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
