MAE SOT (Thailand) - AS THE 50,000th Myanmar refugee to be resettled abroad recently left Thailand for the United States, thousands of others fled their military-ruled homeland to seek shelter under tarps and in temples along the Thai-Myanmar border.

'We would be happier if we were back home as this is not our land, but we will stay here because that side is not safe,' said a 30-year-old medic treating a child for malaria, pointing across an open field to Myanmar.

Escalated violence in rural Myanmar means despite the world's largest resettlement programme, Thailand's refugee population - numbering more than 100,000 - is not likely to diminish any time soon. More than 4,000 ethnic minority Karen have crossed the border in the past month.

The exodus was sparked by fighting between the Karen National Union and the Myanmar regime, a brutal conflict that has been going on for 60 years as the Karen seek greater autonomy.

In addition to the refugees in Thailand, the aid group Thai Burma Border Consortium estimates fighting has spawned nearly 500,000 internally displaced people in eastern Myanmar and countless atrocities against civilians.

Critics say Myanmar's army seeks to eliminate opposition from the Karen and other ethnic minorities to seize control of the area's natural resources, a valuable source of income for the impoverished country.

And with elections scheduled for July 2010, securing Karen State would help the ruling generals claim the entire country was behind the vote and their so-called 'road map to democracy'. Critics have said the moves are a sham designed to perpetuate military rule.

'The main thing is the election - the government wants the Karen out of the picture,' said Mr Ba Win, a teacher who worked as a government veterinarian in Karen State for five years.

The latest round of fighting erupted in early June as government troops and the allied Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, or DKBA, moved against Karen military positions and a large civilian camp, sending villagers across the border north of Mae Sot, a Thai border town 240 miles (380 kilometres) north-west of the Thai capital, Bangkok.

The Karen Human Rights Group says the government is also forcing Karen villagers to join the DKBA and turn the group into a border guard force to better control natural resources in Karen State. -- AP