1 April 2021

Lao government troops have launched a new campaign of attacks against groups of ethnic Hmong living in forests near Phou Bia Mountain in an effort to remove them from areas targeted for development and foreign investment schemes, rights group and Hmong sources say.

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“As you know, this escalation of violence coincides with a push towards the development of Phou Bia Mountain as both a tourist site and an area of interest to foreign investment,” the UNPO official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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Estimates of development funding planned for Phou Bia Mountain run as high as hundreds of millions of dollars, with foreign investment also now growing tied to industrial expansion in the area, UNPO sources say.

The Lao military has long pushed a campaign targeting Hmong in the region in a program of military attacks and forced relocations into government-controlled camps and villages, with repression and the use of force entering “a new phase of severity” in 2016, the UNPO said in a March 25 statement urging an international response to the crisis.

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