Hundreds of Rohingyas gather in the rain to demand safe return to Myanmar’s Rakhine state as they mark the seventh anniversary of their mass exodus from Myanmar at their refugee camp at Kutupalong in Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh in August 2024. (AP Photo/ Shafiqur Rahman)
With starvation fears intensifying in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the UN’s World Food Program is warning of a looming “full-blown disaster.” Years of conflict, especially since the 2021 military coup, have cratered the economy and left humanitarian agencies scrambling to keep up with surging needs. But conditions in Rakhine—a region now largely cut off by military blockades and fighting—are particularly grim, the BBC reports. Aid workers report people are becoming more desperate as food becomes more scarce.
In April, a Rohingya father in a Sittwe displacement camp fatally poisoned himself and his family’s meal, while in June, a Rakhine family reportedly met the same end. Suicide among the displaced, including an elderly couple last week, has also been linked to hunger and financial ruin. Some Rohingya men not conscripted to fight in the army are volunteering to serve, forgoing pay on the condition that their families are fed, per a Washington Post editorial. Some women go from refugee camp to refugee camp, begging for food or engaging in sex work. Many people who have fled across the border to Bangladesh have the same struggles in camps there.
Farmers have abandoned their crops, fishing is off-limits, and prices have soared, leaving them to survive on boiled taro roots. Meanwhile, international agencies can’t access most areas due to the fighting and blockades. After a steep drop in global funding—down 60% from last year—the WFP can now reach just one in five of Myanmar’s most food-insecure people, per the BBC. Aid to Rakhine was scaled back in March. “People are trapped in a vicious cycle—cut off by conflict, stripped of livelihoods, and left with no humanitarian safety net,” said WFP’s Michael Dunford.
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