IDPs in Sagaing Region’s KhinU face food challenges during raining season

By Admin 22 Jun 2023

DMG Newsroom
22 June 2023, KhinU, Sagaing Region

More than 2,000 people displaced by fighting in KhinU Township, Sagaing Region, are reportedly facing food difficulties in the rainy season.

Some internally displaced people (IDPs) are currently taking refuge at monasteries and schools at nearby villages and some build makeshift tents in the farms. 

The IDPs said they are living in insecurity as it is the rainy season and the huts that had been built were already dilapidated.

“We are struggling to make ends meet and facing accommodation difficulties in the rainy season. Sometimes we sleep in the rain as we live in makeshift tents on the farms,” said an IDP man from Madaunggyi Village in KhinU Township.

The IDPs are mainly dependent on donors’ support for food, and as time goes on, that support has dwindled. At least 10 elderly IDPs have died due to lack of proper healthcare and medical assistance for them.

IDPs are facing livelihood hardships, as well as suffering from psychological and physical traumas, and they are asking donors at home and abroad to help and support them.

“We rely on donors for our food. We have many difficulties including our safety,” said an IDP woman from Innpat Village in KhinU Township.

Thousands of IDPs from at least a dozen villages in KhinU Township have been fleeing the conflict triggered by the Myanmar military’s coup more than two years ago.

Nearly 750,000 people remained displaced in Sagaing Region and some 8,000 locals have been displaced by fighting in KhinU Township since the coup, according to a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).