Teen landmine victim in Ponnagyun Twsp struggles to afford medical treatment

By DMG 20 Jan 2022

Maung Oo Ba Maung, 16, who lost a leg after stepping on a landmine last year, is seen on January 18, 2022. (Photo: DMG)

DMG Newsroom
20 January 2022, Ponnagyun

A Grade 8 student who lost a leg after stepping on a landmine in Ponnagyun Township, Arakan State, is struggling to afford the medical treatment needed to recover. 

Maung Oo Ba Maung lost his right leg and sustained severe injury to his left leg after stepping on a landmine while foraging for vegetables in the forest near his village of Ahtet Myat Hle in July 2021. 

The 16-year-old has been receiving medical treatment for the injury to his left leg and is facing financial difficulty buying medicines, according to his family. 

“He lost his right leg and the injury on the right side is recovered now. But he has to receive medical treatment for the injury on his left leg. Sometimes, we could not buy the required medicine as we do not have money,” his older sister Ma Moe Hnin told DMG. 

The young victim’s family earns their livelihood by farming and they are struggling financially to afford his treatment at a time when farmers across Arakan State are facing economic hardship. 

“I want to go to school after my injury is healed,” Maung Oo Ba Maung told DMG. 

Some international organisations and CSOs provided financial aid for him previously, but those sources of funding have dried up, according to his family. 

Scores of people were killed and more than 100 others have been injured in encounters with landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs) during some two years of fighting between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) in Arakan State.

A ceasefire quelling the once-fierce conflict in Arakan State has held up for more than a year. Over 100,000 IDPs have returned to their homes since the fighting stopped, but tens of thousands more remain in displacement camps — for many of whom, fear of landmines and ERWs has left them reluctant to attempt the return. 

A government programme provides K200,000 to landmine victims, but not all of them receive the compensation, affected sources say. One person with a disability due to a landmine encounter said NGOs and Arakan CSOs need to offer more help rehabilitating landmine victims. 

“CSOs and NGOs need to provide psychological counselling for those who lose a body part after a landmine explosion. The organisations need to create jobs and ensure their livelihoods,” he said. 

According to figures compiled by the Rakhine Ethnic Congress (REC), 149 people have been injured and 54 killed due to explosions of landmine and ERWs related to the armed conflict in Arakan State.