Ban on aid deliveries could ring death knell for Arakan storm victims

By Admin 09 Jun 2023

DMG Newsroom
9 June 2023, Sittwe

Myanmar’s military regime has imposed a travel ban on local and international nongovernmental organisations and civil society organisations providing humanitarian assistance to victims of Cyclone Mocha in Arakan State.

The order, effective as of June 8 and issued by the Arakan State Administration Council, bars these organisations from travelling to storm-hit townships for humanitarian operations until further notice.

The order means major humanitarian actors including the International Committee of the Red Cross, World Food Programme and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as local CSOs, will have to suspend their relief operations.

“We were forced to turn back halfway,” an official from an international organisation helping storm victims in Arakan State told DMG.

The order was signed by the Arakan State security and border affairs minister, Colonel Kyaw Thura.

Regarding the order, junta spokesman U Hla Thein said: “I am not involved in making such a decision. I don’t know. But in principle, NGOs can’t provide supplies as they wish. Again, this is not a new policy.”

A member of an Arakan State-based CSO said it has received orders from the junta. “The order says we have to suspend all relief operations.”

Sittwe, Rathedaung, Ponnagyun, Pauktaw, Mrauk-U, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships suffered the most serious impacts of the storm. 

In a bulletin earlier this month, the UNDP said: “Some 1.6 million people in Rakhine [Arakan], Chin, Magway, Sagaing, and Kachin states are in dire need of assistance after Mocha’s 250 kilometre per hour wind gusts destroyed homes, farmland and livestock.”

The latest restrictions will seriously affect the rehabilitation of storm victims in Arakan State, residents warned.

“The storm has inflicted serious impacts on various aspects of life. The ban on humanitarian operations at a time people are struggling to recover raises this question: Do they want to kill Arakan people?” said U Thein Kyaw Mya, the administrator of Pipinyin village in Mrauk-U Township.

The latest barring of aid deliveries in Arakan State will be especially felt among the state’s sizable displaced population.

“People will suffer more if international relief operations are halted,” said U Soe Win Chay, manager of the Zedi Taung displacement camp in Rathedaung Township. “We will have to dig our own graves if supplies from ICRC and other international assistance are cut off.”