More than 25,000 people face a harsh winter with little aid, local charities say
BANGKOK (AlertNet) – More than 25,000 people who have fled fighting between the Myanmar army and separatists face a harsh winter with little aid, local charities said.
The displaced are from the ethnic Kachin group, and are scattered in empty halls and makeshift camps in and around the town of Laiza, near the border with China.
They left their homes and farms in northern Myanmar after fighting between the Myanmar army and the Kachin Independence Army flared in June, ending a 17-year ceasefire.
“We are at our wit’s end,” La Rip, coordinator for the Relief Action Network for IDP and Refugee (RANIR), told AlertNet by telephone from Laiza.
“If we don’t get support within the next couple of weeks, there could be serious problems with food and shelter shortages and worsening weather.”
The United Nations, the European Union and international aid agencies have not had access to the area.
And the only people with access – Kachin aid groups – have little funding to cover their needs.
Moon Nay Li, spokeswoman for the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, said a $2.4 million appeal in July to support the displaced over a three month period, mainly with food and healthcare, has had little response.
“We have managed to raise less than $45,000,” she said. Most of the funding has come from Kachin communities in Myanmar and abroad.
“Some donors have a policy of not funding cross-border work so we are in a difficult position. Some groups are helping us but they can only fund a few days’ worth of assistance,” she added.
RANIR contacted the United Nation’s humanitarian agency OCHA over a month ago.
“We told them the difficulties we’re facing and they said they’re currently trying and hope to get an answer soon,” said La Rip. “We haven’t heard anything since.”
RELIANT ON AID
Most of the Kachins in Laiza have been displaced for months and are living in rickety 5 metre by 7 metre bamboo huts with tarpaulin roofing which is inadequate in cold weather. Others are in empty halls in churches and other buildings in Laiza.
Cramped living conditions, poor sanitation and lack of clean water have led to illness and deaths, a September report from the U.N. news service IRIN, said.
The people, mostly farmers, fled during the planting season with few belongings. Harvest time has come but they are unable to go back because of the dangers involved, including road blocks.
Jobs in Laiza are few and far between and they cannot work in China because they often cannot speak Chinese and don’t have the necessary documents.
“There are also many cases of labour exploitation and trafficking. So they have to completely rely on aid,” La Rip said.
The Kachin Independence Organisation – the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army – has been providing food and shelter but the situation is becoming dire as winter approaches and continued fighting pushes many more to flee, he added.
There were 4,000 newly displaced in the past month alone who need food and shelter urgently, he said, as they are stuck in a very cold area and finding it difficult to keep themselves warm. Winter in these areas can last until March or April, aid workers said.
The displaced who have been in Laiza for several months are also facing food and shelter shortages.
“We are trying to help everyone but there are things that are beyond our capacity,” La Rip said.
MYANMAR TO CHAIR ASEAN
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been internationally isolated for years.
But on Thursday, the 10-member regional bloc ASEAN moved quickly to embrace tentative reforms introduced by the nominally-civilian government in the resource-rich country, giving Myanmar the chairmanship of the group in 2014.
Indonesia’s foreign minister on Tuesday cited “important and significant developments that are taking place in Myanmar over the recent past” as a reason for their enthusiasm.
The junta, which ruled Myanmar for half a century with an iron fist, nominally handed over power in March to civilians after the first elections in two decades.
The new government has made overtures towards ethnic groups, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and an easing of media controls, among other policy changes.
Activists, however, say the Myanmar government is continuing to use violence and coercion rather than political dialogue to solve grievances of ethnic groups.
They say groups like the Kachin still routinely suffer human rights abuses at the hands of the army, who they say burn and loot homes in conflict areas, kill with impunity and use rape as a weapon of war.
“Serious abuses amounting to war crimes in Kachin, Shan, and Karen states have escalated in 2011,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement before Myanmar’s chairmanship was officially announced. “Ongoing abuses in conflict areas show the culture of impunity that remains pervasive within the ranks of the Burmese military,” it added.
HRW said ASEAN should press the Myanmar government to end “grave rights abuses” in ethnic areas as one of the conditions for becoming chair.
“They want to go back of course,” La Rip said of the displaced.
“Here they are stuck in a temporary bamboo hut with no income or livelihood. But all of us don’t know how long the situation would go on and if fighting continues, there could be more people displaced.”
(Editing by Alex Whiting)
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