CHIANG MAI, 4 October 2012 (IRIN) - Nearly 75,000 people living in
temporary camps and shelters following inter-communal conflict in
Myanmar’s Rakhine State in June face deteriorating living conditions,
say local aid workers and residents.
“Right now [the displaced]
are facing health problems from diarrhoea, fevers and colds. A lot of
[them] are living together in small spaces,” said Mohammad Nawsim,
secretary of the Rohingya Human Rights Association (RHRA) based in
Bangkok. “Their condition is worse than animals.”
As of 25
September, the government estimated some 72,000 from the (mainly Muslim)
Rohingya ethnic group and almost 3,000 people from the (mainly
Buddhist) Rakhine ethnic group are displaced. They are staying in 40
camps and temporary sites in Sittwe and Kyauktaw townships, from where
they are still able to
access
schools and work.
Immediately after the outbreak of violence
in June, aid agencies visited areas in four affected townships and
identified sanitation and
clean
water as major needs. At the time, only about 30 percent of the
surveyed displaced persons had access to clean water, while six out of
10 people did not have any way to store it even if they secured some.
A number of camps had only one latrine serving 100 persons. Little has
changed in recent months said Nawsim, noting that young and elderly
Rohingya in the temporary camps along the road leading west out Sittwe
(capital of Rakhine State) as well as Sittwe township are falling ill
due to fetid living conditions.
Long-simmering ethnic and
religious tensions between Rakhine State’s majority population from the
Rakhine ethnic group and its minority Rohingya population
erupted
in early June after the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman
by a group of Rohingya.
Fear Meanwhile,
Rohingya both in the camps and villages have reported arbitrary arrests
and detention, said Nawsim, citing frequent phone calls with those in
and around camps and shelters for the displaced.
“They send me
messages and then I call them back but it's still very dangerous for
them to have
mobile
phones because the soldiers will search them often. They used
Bangladesh mobile phones. The phone only works for a while so when I get
on the phone they will give me all details such as how many people are
missing and which villages they come from.”
Phil Robertson,
deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division based in Bangkok,
told IRIN the displaced are “effectively restricted to camps by both the
security forces and by the violent attacks they fear from the Rakhine
[community].”
Most Muslims have shuttered their former
businesses and left Sittwe after the authorities ordered their
departure, said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an advocacy
organization for the Rohingya.
While supplies and relief are
getting into the camps, delivery is still hampered, she added.
Based on her visits to the displaced in Sittwe with the NGO Refugees
International at the end of September, she said: “Many of the staff of
the NGOs are local workers and are afraid to go to the Muslim camps -
not so much that they are afraid to be attacked by Muslims in the camps,
but they are mostly afraid that if the Rakhine Buddhists see that they
are assisting the Muslims, they will be attacked by their own
community.”
According to a
4 September report
from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
“humanitarian partners remain concerned that access is still limited to
some affected areas and townships outside of Sittwe,” which includes aid
groups working with Rohingya before the most recent bloodshed which
have now been forced to discontinue their services.
International aid workers report being unable to get travel
authorization to work in affected northern townships in Rakhine State,
including Maungdaw, which borders on Bangladesh and where almost 500
homes
were burnt down in the violence.
Hundreds of thousands of
Rohingya have fled persecution in Myanmar over the past three decades,
the vast majority to Bangladesh in the 1990s.
International
aid efforts UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Myanmar’s
President Thein Sein discussed how to address the root causes of
inter-communal tensions in Rakhine State, including through development
efforts, on
29
September at the recent UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
The president said the government would address the needs.
The
Burmese government signed a memorandum of understanding with the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in mid-August to facilitate
OIC partner organizations’ humanitarian assistance to displaced
Rohingya. The head of international relief and development of Qatar Red
Crescent Society, Khaled Diab, told IRIN his chapter will carry out
relief work estimated at
US$1.5
million among displaced Rohingya over the next six months - and
possibly longer depending on funding - in health, shelter, water and
sanitation.
A multi-agency
Rakhine
Response Plan estimates it will take some $32.5 million to cover
basic emergency needs until the end of the year for an estimated 80,000
displaced.
“Most people in the camps believe they will never be
able to go back to the town, even though the government says the camps
are only temporary,” Arakan Project's Lewa said.
Aid groups
working in Rakhine State are meeting in Myanmar’s capital - most
recently on 22-23 September - to review longer-term issues of relief,
rehabilitation and rule of law in the state.
According to the
UN database which records international humanitarian aid, the
Financial
Tracking Service, and not-yet-recorded recent donor announcements,
some $11 million has been pledged or contributed to humanitarian
assistance in Rakhine State this year.
