Douglas Riach comforts his badly injured wife Lydia Riach while looking for assistance. Photo John Le Fevre
Update September 5, 2009: Information that had previously been supplied by telephone that Lydia Riach had died was incorrect. It appears what the caller was referring to on September 3, 2009 was a diagnosis of brain death. Lydia Riach continues to be maintained on a life support ventilator. Attempts to contact Douglas Riach on September 3 to confirm the information supplied by a friend of the family went unanswered. Apologies are extended to the family ~ John Le Fevre
Lydia Riach, a middle-aged Scottish woman, is fighting for her life in a Bangkok hospital, the victim of a bag-snatch theft that went horribly wrong.
Lydia, from Inverness, Scotland, was walking with her husband Douglas Riach down a well trafficked laneway in central Bangkok on Saturday night between Soi Sukhumvit 20 and Soi Sukhumvit 22 when two men on a motorbike drove passed and stole her handbag.
According to Douglas, Lydia had the bag around her neck as well as over her shoulder and the force of the theft sent her spinning into the roadway fracturing her skull in multiple places.
Doctors at Bangkok Police Hospital performed emergency brain surgery on Lydia on Saturday night following the attack, but have told Douglas that his wife is unlikely to awaken from the coma she is currently in.
“The doctors have said her skull was fractured externally in two places as well as internally. She was bleeding from the ears and by the time we got to the hospital there was fragments of bone coming out of her ears.
“She’s currently in a coma and we’ve been trying to talk to her but now she only has one eye open and is not responding to us or bright lights. The doctors have said they don’t think she will last a week though”, a distressed Douglas said.
Family relatives have started arriving in Bangkok, with Douglas’ brother flying in on Monday night and the couples two children expected on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Douglas has been resident in Bangkok for about two years where he works as a consultant for Infinity Financial Solutions, and Lydia joined him less than a year ago and has been actively involved in assisting underprivileged children since.
Friends at The Twenty Two Scottish Bar in Soi Sukhumvit 22 where the two were heading for a game of dominoes when the attack took place were shocked at news of the assault.
“This is not a bad part of Bangkok, but there is no denying that these sorts of assaults are on the increase as the economic crisis continues to worsen”, one patron said.
Douglas Riach comforts Lydia Riach after her bag was stolen in Bangkok. Photo John Le Fevre
Douglas Riach assists Lydia Riach following the bag-snatch in. Photo John Le Fevre
The top of Lydia Riach's head indicates the extent of her injuries. Photo John Le Fevre
Douglas Riach and rescue volunteers in Bangkok attemp to assist Lydia Riach. Photo John Le Fevre
The protest by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - Doctors without Borders, could create a humanitarian crisis
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors without Borders as they are otherwise known, runs the risk of creating a humanitarian crisis if it goes ahead with plans to withdraw from a Hmong refugee camp in Northern Thailand in protest at the Thai governments treatment of Hmong.
This warning was sounded yesterday by Yap Swee Seng, director of Forum-Asia, a regional human rights organisation with 42 member-organisations across the region.
MSF announced earlier in the week that due to ongoing difficulties and barriers put in its way by the Thailand government, it was discontinuing its work at the Huay Nam Khao camp in Petchabun province.
MSF said it will withdraw the medical and other aid it has been providing more than 5,000 Hmong refugees to protest what it describes as “coercive tactics” and action by the Thai military against the Hmong.
At a press conference on Wednesday, May 20, MSF Thailand director, Gilles Isard, said the group is working with UNICEF to hand over responsibilities of caring for the camp’s residents to another NGO, but so far no replacement had been found.
Médecins Sans Frontières Thailand director Gilles Isard said MSF will wihdraw from the Hmong refugee camp at Huay Nam Khao in protest at the actions of the Thai government and military. Photo courtesy Radio Free Asia
MSF claims to have had continual problems with Thai military officials and the Thai Army’s psychological operations unit in Phitsanulok.
However, Mr Yap said protesting in this manner and withdrawing services will hurt the very people MSF are supposed to be helping and will cause the Hmong greater difficulties and discomfort and could result in a humanitarian crisis.
Mr Yap said he had, “personally never heard of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) protesting working conditions imposed by a host country by withdrawing its services before. Usually it is a government telling an NGO they are no longer welcome.
“It’s a matter of grave concern… it will be very unfortunate if the assistance supplied to this camp is cut off. The community will suffer and with the wet season now underway they [Hmong refugees] will be more in need of medical care than in the dry season. Their protest action could result in a humanitarian crisis,” he said.
A similar view was expressed by Steve Gumaer, head of Partners World, an NGO that runs programs for orphaned and displaced children, provides emergency relief, development, and capacity building with other minority groups under the name of Partners Relief & Development in Thailand’s northern and northwestern provinces.
Mr Gumaer said he had “never heard of an NGO protesting in a manner like this before. “It’s just going to make it worse for the Hmong refugees. It’s not going to shake the Thais. It sounds like the wrong way of going about making their point”.
MSF claims, “the Thai military’s scare tactics to pressure ethnic Laos Hmong refugees to accept a forced return to Laos and its intensifying restrictions on MSF’s activities, such as trying to force MSF to temporarily cutting (sic) food distributions to the refugee population and forcing patients to pass through military control to obtain medical care, have compelled MSF to terminate its medical relief program.”
The international humanitarian aid organisation, established by a group of French doctors and journalists in 1971 in the wake of the famine in Biafra, Nigeria, said it will withdraw from the camp and issued, “a final appeal to the Thai and Laotian governments to immediately stop deporting the Hmong refugees in Huay Nam Khao and to allow an independent third party to review the refugees’ claims for protection and to monitor any repatriations.”
Laos and Thailand claim all 5,000 Hmong in the camp are economic migrants, and that the 2,000 or so ethnic Hmong refugees already returned to Laos have gone back voluntarily.
MSF though say the Laos government’s human rights record is poor and there is minimal transparency, because the UN or third parties are forbidden from properly monitoring the the Hmong refugees after their return.
Last year MSF called for international monitors to screen the Hmong for those with genuine refugee claims, saying dozens of people in the camp had bullet wounds and there was the potential for riots and suicides if the Hmong were not properly screened before being returned to Laos.
MSF has been providing food, shelter and medical care worth more than €1 million (about $US1.365 million) a year to the Huay Nam Khao camp and it is the size of the contribution and the hole that will be left when they withdraw that has people worried.
Other NGOs contacted refused to make on-the-record comments for fear of generating a rift in the close knit NGO community, but all claimed to be “shocked” and “surprised” by the decision of an NGO to protest by taking away the very services they were established to provide, from the people they are supposed to be providing it to.
Mr Yap said it will be very difficult to find another NGO to step in and fill the gap left by MSF. “MSF have the expertise and it will take time for other NGOs to mobilise the resources, the funds and the people.”
If MSF suddenly abandons the Huay Nam Khao camp, Mr Yap said he would expect it to take at least a month or more before other NGOs were ready to mobilise, and for the necessary approvals to be granted by the Thai government for any replacement program to be introduced.
“Refugees are the most vulnerable group in society and I hope the Thai government takes note of what is happening and the reasons for it. The government has a responsibility to protect those who are vulnerable,” Mr Yap said.
The Hmong have long been a bone of contention in relationships between Thailand and Laos.
In the early 1960s the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began recruiting and training Laos Hmong for fighting in the Vietnam War. Some estimates put the number of Hmong men in Laos who joined the fighting at 60 percent of the population.
Under the identity of the Special Guerrilla Unit, the CIA used Hmong fighters to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main military supply route from Vietnam’s north to the south, and to rescue downed American pilots.
From 1967 to 1971, 3,772 Hmong soldiers were killed in combat, with another 5,426 injured or disabled. Between 1962 and 1975 about 12,000 Hmong died fighting the communist-nationalist Pathet Lao in Laos, in what became known as the Secret War.
When the Pathet Lao took over the government in 1975 the Hmong were singled out for retribution, and tens of thousands fled to Thailand seeking political asylum.
The Thai Army claims only about 100 Hmong in the camp have proven links to those who fought for the CIA in the Secret War against the communists, however, MSF and major human rights groups and Hmong advocates in the US believe the number of legitimate refugees could be many times higher.
MSF said its decision to withdraw from the Huay Nam Khao camp would not affect a project run by MSF France in Mae Sot treating migrants for tuberculosis, or another project operated by MSF Belgium in Sangkhla Buri treating ethnic Mon from Burma for malaria.
This story has been updated to include information made available at the Médecins Sans Frontières press conference on the afternoon of May 20, 2009 that was not available at the time the original story was written on May 19. The information may have altered the opinions and/or views of those interviewed and quoted for the original story.
CIA, Forum-Asia, Hmong, Ho Chi Minh Trail, Huay Nam Khao, Laos, Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, NGOs, Partners Relief & Development, Partners World, Pathet Lao, Secret War, Special Guerrilla Unit, Thailand Army, Thailand hill tribes, Thailand military
An image of the influenza A(H1N1), or Mexican swine flu, virus
An intergovernmental meeting of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has failed to reach an agreement on sharing influenza virus research material and access to vaccines, with the US placing profits ahead of the threat of wide-scale, world-wide deaths from the current influenza A(H1N1), or Mexican swine flu, pandemic.
The impasse occurred despite a warning by Dr Thirawat Hemachudha, director of the World Health Organisation’s Collaborating Centre for Research and Training on Viral Zoonoses, that a second wave of the A(H1N1) influenza virus, or Mexican swine flu as it was originally termed, could occur as early as July.
In the past week the number of people infected by the influenza A(H1N1) virus has risen sharply, with the United States recording the highest number of cases, followed by Mexico where the pandemic began.
On Saturday the WHO reported an additional seven deaths, raising the number of people killed by the influenza A(H1N1) virus to 72, with 1,000 new confirmed cases reported in the previous 24 hours.
India, Turkey, Japan, Ecuador, Peru, Belgium, Cuba, Finland and Thailand have all confirmed cases of influenza A(H1N1) in the last week.
According to Dr Thirawat, “the current situation is like a warning sign, reminding us that the big wave is coming. According to scientific records, the second wave should happen between two months to two years [after the initial outbreak].”
As the number of people infected by the influenza A(H1N1) virus hit almost 8,500 cases in 38 countries, the two-day WHO meeting concluded with poorer countries dissatisfied with the stance of the US.
Indonesia, one of the countries hit in the outbreak, wanted vaccines produced by industrialised countries shared with developing nations which do not have the means to produce enough doses in case of a global pandemic.
Poor countries argued they should have access to the resulting vaccines, especially if the samples used to develop them came from the developing world. However, US delegates balked at this, insisting pharmaceutical companies should be able to claim the vaccines as intellectual property and earn royalties on them.
A map showing the spread of the influenza A(H1N1) or Mexican swine flue, virus since April 18, 2009. Image courtesy HealthMap (http://healthmap.org/en)
Coinciding with this, Japan confirmed 13 students at a high school in the western city of Kobe had tested positive for influenza A(H1N1), bringing the total number of confirmed cases there to 25.
In nearby Osaka city there are nine suspected cases from one high school, with about 100 additional students in the same school reporting symptoms such as fever.
The continued spread of influenza A(H1N1), for which no effective treatment is currently available, prompted former WHO senior official Shigeru Omi, who heads the Japanese government’s special swine flu task force to warn, “we believe that the infection is beginning to spread in the region.”
Though the WHO meeting had been planned for some time, it took on new urgency with the current outbreak.
Mexican swine flu, or influenza A(H1N1) as it was renamed, leapt into the spotlight on April 24, when the WHO announced around 800 suspected cases had been recorded in Mexico, along with seven cases in the US.
Five days later the WHO raised its alert level to five, calling on countries to prepare for an “imminent” pandemic.
