Mob attack, Red Cross crash hamper Rohingya aid

YANGON: Myanmar police clashed with an angry mob blocking an aid shipment in the state of Rakhine and nine people died when a Red Cross truck crashed in Bangladesh yesterday, hampering urgentlyneeded relief efforts for Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence.

Aid groups fear that tens of thousands trapped in Rakhine are desperate for support, even though humanitarian access is still hampered despite the government’s promise to allow safe passage.

A 300-strong mob in Rakhine’s state capital Sittwe massed late on Wednesday at a jetty where a boat carrying relief goods was preparing to travel up river to hard-hit Maungdaw.

They forced the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) to unload the aid from the boat and prevented the vessel from leaving, state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported yesterday, quoting Myanmar’s information committee.

Police officers arrived as the crowd neared the jetty, while monks also tried to calm the mob, but people began to hurl “stones and Molotov (cocktails) at the riot police”, the report said.

Eight people were detained and several police were injured before order was restored.

The ICRC confirmed the incident and said they would continue to try and deliver relief to the area.

“We will carry on, nothing has been put on hold,” Graziella Leite Piccoli, ICRC spokesman for Asia, told AFP.

News of the clashes in the violencewracked state, where security forces have been accused of razing scores of Rohingya villages, emerged as a truck hired by the Red Cross crashed in Bangladesh, killing nine people and injuring 10 others.

“It was carrying the food to Rohingya refugees on the border, including those stranded in the noman’s land,” Yasir Arafat, deputy police chief of Bandarban border district, said. – AFP