Aid further declines for Arakan IDPs as mobile wallets hit by telecoms blackout

By Admin 24 Oct 2024

DMG Newsroom
24 October 2024, Sittwe

Volunteers helping internally displaced people (IDPs) in Arakan State complain that they have lost access to mobile wallets that they had used to receive money from donors for IDPs.

They said KPay accounts that they previously used to receive money from donors and transfer to IDPs were logged out after internet and phone services were cut off earlier this month.

"I can't sign back into my KPay account after the phone service was cut off. I have millions of kyats in my account including money donated for IDPs," said a woman from Kyaukphyu Township who is helping IDPs.

Due to junta blockades in Arakan State, donors can only transfer cash through local charities and humanitarians for displaced people using mobile wallet services such as KPay.

The regime cut off phone and internet services across most of Arakan State since fighting with the Arakkha Army (AA) resumed in November of last year. Communications were restored in some places after the AA began to seize towns, but phone and internet services were completely cut off in those areas for four days in the second week of October. KPay accounts were apparently logged out as a result.

One woman from Ramree said: "A donor abroad has transferred money to my KPay account to donate to a monk displaced by the fighting. My account became logged out after phone services were cut off, and I can't sign back into it."

Residents who similarly lost access to their KPay accounts in early 2024 due to a communications blackout by the regime could restore their accounts after friends and family in Yangon helped them apply for new SIMs and signed into their accounts from Yangon.

However, telecom operators now refuse to issue new SIM cards for subscribers whose citizenship ID cards indicate that they are from Arakan State, according to Arakanese communities in Yangon.

A female volunteer helping IDPs in Kyaukphyu Township said: "Donors have only transferred money to us online. We haven't met face to face. How will they trust us after our accounts are logged out?"

Junta travel restrictions are also making it difficult for local and international humanitarian organisations to deliver humanitarian supplies to IDPs in Arakan State. More than 600,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and many are suffering from severe livelihood hardships.