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Rohingya Flood Victims Abandoned by Burmese Government

By Burmese Rohingya Organization UK  •  August 7, 2015

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK is receiving reports from Rakhine State indicating that the Burmese government has abandoned most Rohingya victims of the floods and is focusing instead on assisting only ethnic Rakhine.

The Burmese government has been evacuating ethnic Rakhine from the low-lying areas to highlands in many towns of Arakan.  State government and central government supplied aid and relief to the Rakhine residents while Rohingyas were totally neglected.

The lives of Rohingyas in IDP camps and others who were previously not getting enough aid are now in danger. The floods hit children and families who are already very vulnerable, including Rohingya Muslims who are living in camps in Rakhine State.

While international attention has focused on flood victims across Burma, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in areas not evacuated have not been provided with sufficient aid and are in desperate need in their camps and homes. The shelters that many Rohingya in IDP camps were living in were old and needed replacing but despite concerns about the vulnerable position of the camps to storms at this time of year, they were not replaced. This has made Rohingyas even more vulnerable to the floods.

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK is calling on the United Nations and international agencies to do more to reach vulnerable Rohingya populations with aid, as the government is not helping them as it should. False accusations that they favour Rohingya with aid should be ignored and the focus will be on humanitarian need.

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK President Tun Khin said; “The immediate need for today is that aid gets through to those who need it. This crisis has been made worse by existing restrictions on aid to Rohingya IDPs. It is yet another example of why it is vital that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon personally takes the lead in negotiating unrestricted international humanitarian access in Rakhine State. We cannot continue with a situation where there are crises every few months and even in normal times the situation is unacceptable.”

For more information please contact:  Tun Khin +44 7888714866.

Tags: ASEAN, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, Flood Victims, Humanitarian Assistance, Rakhine State, Rohingya IDPs

This post is in: Press Release

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