About 30 Pauktaw Twsp villagers suffer from diarrhoea after drinking seawater

By DMG 17 Dec 2022

DMG Newsroom
17 December 2022, Pauktaw 

Residents from Thae Khon village on Myay Ngu Island in Pauktaw Township, Arakan State, said about 30 villagers are suffering from diarrhoea after drinking seawater. 

Residents of Thae Khon Village have been drinking seawater ever since a storm hit the village in October, residents said. 

“Due to the storm, seawater entered the whole village. We only cook rice with seawater. Even if you wash good clothes, you can’t wear them for about a week. If you boil seawater and drink it, it’s not good,” said Daw Ma Myint Zan, a resident of Thae Khon Village. 

Thae Khon Village has, for years, suffered from annual shoreline erosion that imposes a heavy financial burden on villagers and threatens the very existence of the settlement. Some 60 houses were damaged or destroyed by erosion in October, the villagers said. 

Some villagers buy purified drinking water that is shipped from Sittwe by boat, but most of the villagers who cannot afford it are drinking seawater, the villagers said. 

“My brother has had diarrhoea for two days because of drinking seawater. Some residents buy purified drinking water from Sittwe and drink it. Poor people like us can’t afford to buy purified drinking water. That’s why we only use this well,” local resident Ko Kyaw Than told DMG. 

U Sein Hla Oo, the administrator of Thae Khon Village, said he would like assistance in addressing the drinking water problem. 

“We are facing difficulties in accessing drinking water. … I want the relevant authorities to do something to solve the problem of getting drinking water for us,” he said. 

Thae Khon Village, located about five kilometres south of the Arakan State capital, has around 400 households, with a population of about 2,000.