June 8, 2017
Thousands of families displaced by the recent clearance operations are urgently in need of aid as the monsoon season looks to get underway, according to the UNHCR.
Speaking to the Democratic Voice of Burma, Andrew Dusek, the associate communications officer at the, UNHCR, said on Wednesday, “Many returnees are currently staying in makeshift shelters, which provide little protection from the weather. With the arrival of the rainy season, which has already caused significant damage to existing shelters in many parts of Rakhine, it is extremely urgent that people have a protective and dignified roof over their heads and are able to resume livelihood activities.”
Our correspondents say that locals have forcefully been prevented from repairing their houses and the local administration has bluntly informed them that the destroyed village tracts of Northern Maungdaw were now government property.
While many Rohingyas don’t have the resources to make new houses, even those that do have been ordered not to make the necessary repairs. They have been told the government will move them to IDP camps without giving them any specific reasons.
The IDP camps that exist in the southern townships and Akyab have some of the worst living conditions in the world, according to international media reports.
Rohingyas in many parts of Maungdaw are also prevented from going outside their village, thus creating conditions of artificial starvation, a time tested method of blockade enforced in the southern townships since the 2012 riots.
Earlier a report in the London based Independent said that more than a thousand children had died after the Tatmadaw cut off basic aid in Maungdaw and Buthidaung.
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