Arakan News Agency
Military counterinsurgency operations are causing widespread hunger and malnutrition among Myanmar’s oppressed Rohingya minority, according to internal UN reports that directly contradict government statements.
Most of Myanmar’s approximately one million ethnic Rohingya Muslims live in northern Arakan State, which has been almost completely off limits to journalists and aid workers since insurgents launched deadly attacks on police posts on 9 October. There have been widespread reports of abuses of Rohingya civilians during military “clearing operations”, which have also disrupted harvests and markets, as well as nutrition programmes.
The UN and rights groups have repeatedly urged the government to allow an independent investigation into alleged atrocities, and to give full access to humanitarian agencies. The government has instead formed its own commission, which said in its interim report that it could find no evidence of alleged abuses, including widespread reports of rape. The report also gave a positive assessment of the food security situation.
“No cases of malnutrition were found in the area, due to the area’s favourable fishing and farming conditions,” the commission said last week.
Two UN assessments, which have not been released publicly but were provided to IRIN, found precisely the opposite.
A 29 December update by the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, was based partly on findings in parts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships where aid workers were allowed. In the preceding week, about 5,000 people were able to access nutrition programmes, it said.
“Despite a low overall turnout, a number of severely malnourished patients is proportionately higher than the pre-9 October intake,” said the update, which sourced information from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, and World Food Programme.
A seperate “remote emergency assessment” carried out over the phone by WFP found that “severe food insecurity appears highly widespread” and has worsened since October in Maungdaw, a Rohingya-majority township on the Bangladesh border.
“The main source of food for most of the households – 94 percent in the north and 71 percent in the south – have been neighbors or relatives lending or gifting food,” said the WFP report.
*Silke Buhr, a WFP spokeswoman, told IRIN that the organization is encouraged by recent negotiations with Arakan State authorities who have agreed to allow programmes to resume. “WFP is hopeful that it will be able to begin food distributions imminently,” she said.
People surveyed by WFP said that markets in southern areas of Maungdaw were functioning, although supplies were low, and the price of rice shot up by 21 percent even though it is right after the harvest. Market “access appears safe only to the population living nearby”, the report said.
In northern Maungdaw, where military operations have been concentrated, the picture was far bleaker. “Markets appear not to function with nearly all respondents reporting serious damages to market infrastructure or exhausted food stocks,” said the report.
Myanmar’s government was unimpressed by those findings.
“I am asking now: ‘what is their proof?’” said Zaw Htay, a government spokesman. “What is their data?”
He said the health ministry needs more time to conduct a nationwide survey on nutrition rates, in coordination with the UN.
“We need concrete, sound, and reliable data about malnutrition around the country,” he said in a phone interview.
Last month, the Arakan State government secretary, Tin Maung Shwe, also questioned reports on hunger. “We have a survey of every village, and there is no starvation and no malnutrition,” he told IRIN.
Yet, malnutrition in northern Arakan State has been a longstanding problem – and one previously acknowledged by the government.
Pierre Peron, an OCHA spokesman, noted that programmes to treat malnutrition have been “implemented by the UN and International NGOs in northern Arakan State for many years, under MOUs (memorandums of understanding) agreed with their relevant line ministries.”
The government has made repeated promises that aid groups will be allowed full access to northern Arakan State, but that has yet to happen as military operations continue.
Meanwhile, reports of military rapes, killings, and disappearances continue to emerge from Maungdaw, and Rohingya keep fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. The UN reported that 22,000 people arrived in Bangladesh between 3 and 9 January, bringing the total to more than 65,000 since October.
Yet, some aid workers are hopeful the promises on future access might soon turn into reality.
Health Ministry officials were presented with data on malnutrition at a meeting this week with senior representatives of aid agencies. Sources who attended the meeting told IRIN that the ministry accepted that malnourishment was a widespread problem and expressed a willingness to fight it.
“I feel much more hopeful that we can help children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition,” said Bertrand Bainvel, the country representative for UNICEF.
