UNITED NATIONS/UNITED STATES - One-third of the population of Myanmar, or more than 18 million people, now require humanitarian aid, the United Nations warned on Dec 18, seeking nearly a billion US dollars in donations in 2024 to combat the need.
The humanitarian situation in the South-east Asian country has worsened since the coup there nearly three years ago in February 2021, the global body said.
“Myanmar stands at the precipice in 2024 with a deepening humanitarian crisis that has spiralled since the military takeover in February 2021 with the civilian population that is now living in fear,” said a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) published on Dec 18.
The 18.6 million people currently in need of humanitarian assistance is one million more than a year ago and 19 times as many as in 2020, before the coup.
“Children are bearing the brunt of the crisis, with six million children in need as a result of displacement, interrupted healthcare and education, food insecurity and malnutrition, and protection risks including forced recruitment and mental distress,” said Mr Marcoluigi Corsi, the UN’s interim humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar.
The report highlighted the particular concern of mass displacement, with nearly 2.6 million people pushed out of their homes as at Dec 11 – an increase of 1.1 million since the same time in 2022 – including more than 660,000 people who have been displaced since late October amid the escalating conflict between the military and ethnic minority fighters in the country’s north.
Further exacerbating the situation, “conflicts and violence are expected to worsen in 2024”, the report said, while denouncing “systematic military violence against civilians”.
Given the dire circumstances, Ocha called on Dec 18 for US$994 million (S$1.3 billion) in donations to help the 5.3 million people who have been identified as priorities for aid in Myanmar in 2024.
“We cannot afford a repeat of the gross underfunding seen in 2023” when only 29 per cent of required funding was met, Mr Corsi said, pointing out that an estimated 1.9 million people who had been prioritised for aid in 2023 were not reached.
“Millions of lives are at stake and we all must do everything we can to prevent Myanmar becoming a forgotten emergency,” he said, even as the majority of UN international aid programmes remain underfunded. AFP
