Some 800,000 people affected by Cyclone in Myanmar, Toll over 145

Some 800,000 people affected by Cyclone in Myanmar, Toll over 145
by AFP Staff Writers
Geneva (AFP) May 19, 2023

At least 800,000 people in Myanmar need emergency food aid and other assistance after Cyclone Mocha slammed into the conflict-torn country earlier this week, the United Nations said Friday.

Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) per hour to Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh on Sunday, with Myanmar's junta saying 145 people had been killed and media reports suggesting the number was far higher.

The UN's World Food Programme described "a trail of devastation" across Myanmar's Rakhine State, a region that is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who live in displacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict.

The cyclone left "houses flattened, roads cut off by uprooted trees, hospitals and schools destroyed, and telecommunications and power lines severely disrupted," Anthea Webb, WFP's deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Bangkok.

"There are at least 800,000 people in urgent need of emergency food assistance," she said, adding that "greater needs for food, shelter, water, health and other humanitarian aid are expected to be revealed as we reach more areas."

And while Bangladesh was spared a direct hit, "nearly half a million Bangladeshis and thousands of Rohingya refugees have lost their homes and assets", she said.

Webb said that WFP had started its response to Mocha before the storm hit, reaching 28,000 people in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border with advance cash aid to help them prepare.

And, she said, as soon as the worst of the storm passed, the agency had reached thousands of refugees with emergency food assistance, and were working "around the clock" to resume their regular food support.

In Myanmar, WFP had begun emergency food distributions to families in evacuation shelters in Rakhine state and the neighbouring Magway region.

The agency, she said, aimed to reach at least 800,000 people in the worst affected areas of Rakhine, Magway and Chin -- almost half of them already displaced by conflict -- for an initial three months.

"In both countries, the needs are immense," Webb said.

She pointed out that funding shortages had forced WFP in March to reduce the value of food vouchers for refugees living in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh to just 10 US cents per meal.

"And we will have to cut it again in June unless funding is secured," she said, adding that WFP urgently needs $56 million until the end of the year to help Rohingya refugees there.

In Myanmar, meanwhile, the UN agency needs $60 million to provide emergency assistance to 2.1 million internally displaced and vulnerable people, including the 800,000 hit by Mocha, she said.

"The cyclone has made a bad situation much worse for millions of people already struggling to cope in extremely precarious conditions."

Cyclone Mocha death toll reaches 145 in Myanmar
Yangon (AFP) May 19, 2023 - The death toll from Cyclone Mocha has reached 145 in Myanmar, its junta said Friday, with most of the dead from the persecuted Rohingya minority.

Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 kilometres per hour (120 miles per hour) to Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh on Sunday, collapsing buildings and turning streets into rivers.

The storm churned up villages, uprooted trees and knocked out communications across much of Myanmar's conflict-scarred Rakhine state.

The region is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who live in displacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict.

"Altogether 145 local people were killed during the cyclone," a statement from Myanmar's junta authorities said.

The number included four soldiers, 24 locals and 117 "Bengalis", it added, using a pejorative term for the Rohingya.

Media reports that 400 Rohingya had died were "not true", the junta's statement said, adding that action would be taken against outlets that published the figure.

Widely viewed as interlopers from Bangladesh, the Rohingya are denied citizenship and access to health care in Myanmar, and require permission to travel outside of their townships.

A Rohingya village leader previously told AFP that more than 100 people were missing from his village alone following the storm.

Another leader based near the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe told AFP that at least 105 Rohingya had died around the city, with counting still ongoing.

The cyclone had left at least 800,000 people in Myanmar in need of emergency food aid and other assistance, the United Nations World Food Programme said in Geneva on Friday.

"The cyclone has made a bad situation much, much worse for millions of people who are already struggling to cope in very precarious conditions," WFP deputy director for Asia and the Pacific Anthea Webb told reporters.

- 'United strength' -

Junta-backed media reported Friday that naval ships and the air force had brought in thousands of bags of rice, while thousands of electricians, firefighters and rescue workers had been deployed across Rakhine.

Normal flight service had resumed at Sittwe airport on Thursday, according to newspaper the Global New Light of Myanmar.

Some international aid groups, including the WFP, were working on the ground in Sittwe this week, AFP correspondents said.

A junta spokesman did not respond to questions on whether UN agencies would be granted access to displacement camps outside Sittwe that house Rohingya.

"Offers from the international community for providing aid have been accepted," state media said Tuesday.

"But relief and rehabilitation tasks must be done through existing united strength," said the Global New Light of Myanmar.

A military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017 sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing into neighbouring Bangladesh, with harrowing stories emerging of murder, rape and arson.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing -- who was head of the army during the crackdown -- has dismissed the term Rohingya as "imaginary".

In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that now house almost one million Rohingya.

Cyclones -- the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific -- are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live.

Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, killing at least 138,000 people.

A previous junta regime faced international criticism for its response to that disaster. It was accused of blocking emergency aid and initially refusing to grant access to humanitarian workers and supplies.