Global Research: 12-11-2024,
Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which is home to the Rohingya minority and engulfed in a conflict between government forces and a powerful ethnic group, could face an imminent acute famine, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
In a damning report published on Thursday, the UN agency says that “a perfect storm is brewing” that has put western Rakhine “on the precipice of an unprecedented disaster.”
The report, titled: Rakhine: A Famine in the Making, points to a chain of interlinked developments, including restrictions on goods from elsewhere in Myanmar and from neighbouring Bangladesh, an absence of income for residents, hyperinflation, significantly reduced food production and a lack of essential services and a social safety net.
As a result, UNDP says, “an already highly vulnerable population may be on the brink of collapse in the coming months.”
Many members of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority consider the Rohingya Muslim minority to be Bengalis from Bangladesh, even though their families have lived in the country for generations.
In August 2017, attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on government security personnel triggered a brutal campaign by the military that led at least 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.
The military is accused of mass rape, killings and burning thousands of homes.
Since Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic minority armed groups have been attempting to topple the military junta.