Out of 1,474 Shan refugees that arrived in Chiangmai's Fang District last month, at least 300 had left home following the international Red Cross's third tour to their villages in southern Shan State late last May, said a relief worker.

"We are having the highest number of arrivals since the year 2003 began," said the 53-year old worker who requested his name be withheld.

According to the refugees from Laikha, 79 miles northeast of Taungyyi, Burmese officials masquerading as Red Cross visited their villages. Then, after the "Red Cross" had left, villagers who had "betrayed" were taken away never to be seen again.

A typical report was the one from Kanna, 47, of Tark Mawk tract:

On 1 June, 3 Burmese "Red Cross officials" and a 1 Shan interpreter visited Pang Hpone village. At 04:30 on 3 June, 3 villagers who had testified to the "Red Cross" two-days earlier were taken away from their homes by "Shan rebels who spoke fluent Burmese but pidgin Shan" and had failed to turn up since.

The three were Zai Woon, 38, a native of Lienlin village, whose 209-households were forced to relocate to Pang Phone during the 1996-98 campaign against the Shan State Army; Ariya, 46, and Loong Kawn, 51.

"I was one of the 16 people who had met and talked to the 'Red Cross'", said Kanna. Most of us decided remaining in the area would be foolhardy, so we left with our families."

The SSA had denied it had anything to do with the disappearance of the villagers. Indeed, it had even exhorted the local people to divulge everything without reserve to the ICRC, according to S.H.A.N. report, ICRC visits Shan State _again, 1 June 2003, prompting a Shan woman activist in Chiangmai to comment:

"Col Moengzuen (commander of the Shan force in Laikha area) is misinformed in thinking that whatever the ICRC knows will be made public. The ICRC does not work that way."