Rakhine under lockdown
Mercy Malaysia forced to scale down ops in the Myanmar state
PETALING JAYA:
The recent flareup of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has forced Mercy Malaysia and other aid groups to scale down their operations.
Mercy Malaysia president Datuk Dr Ahmad Faizal Mohd Perdaus said Myanmar authorities had told all foreign and international aid groups operating in Rakhine to go on a “temporary lockdown”.
“As a result of the recent fighting, we have been forced to scale down our operations.
“The United Nations (UN) and all other groups have been asked over the past few days to go into a lockdown situation whereby local staff and expatriates are not allowed to operate openly in Rakhine,” he said when contacted here yesterday.
On Friday, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres had warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in western Myanmar following the violence.
The violence erupted on Aug 25 when militants attacked police posts and an army base, provoking a major counteroffensive that reportedly killed around 400 people, mostly Rohingya.
The UN estimated that 38,000 people had sought refuge in Bangladesh due to the recent violence while another 20,000 were massed along its border, barred from entering the country.
AFP reported that news of massacres and the torching of villages had further amplified tensions, raising fears that violence in Rakhine was spinning out of control.
Mercy Malaysia, said Dr Ahmad Faizal, ran both mobile and static clinics offering primary healthcare and reproductive health services as well as carried out repair and reconstruction work in Rakhine.
However, he declined to give details on the number of its staff and volunteers in the country due to security reasons but said the group was one of the few granted free access to Rakhine state prior to the lockdown order.
“Lack of access to the areas affected means there is little point of us continuing to operate,” he said, urging Malaysians who wished to contribute to donate cash instead of items.
“Getting goods from Malaysia to the affected areas in Myanmar is going to be a major problem. Cash donations can be used by NGOs in Myanmar to buy aid locally and get it to the victims more easily,” he said.
Former Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation special envoy to Myanmar Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar said member countries as well as Myanmar’s immediate neighbours and Asean needed to speak out louder on the plight of the Rohingya.
“Unless something is done by the international community, I worry that this could lead to the total ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya,” he said.
The violence, he warned, could trigger another wave of refugees from Myanmar to neighbouring countries, including Malaysia.
The Muslim Professionals Forum urged all Malaysians to extend their solidarity and assistance to the Rohingya refugees – either directly or indirectly – through the various groups who had been supporting them regularly over the years.
In a statement, it also urged the Malaysian Government to organise relief missions into the affected areas to provide urgent medical and humanitarian aid.