In an interview with UN News, Knut Ostby, Acting Resident
and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar, reiterated calls for all sides “to
find a peaceful solution to the situation”, amid concern “that there could be a
quite immediate escalation of fighting”.
It is also vital that humanitarian access is improved to
help all those affected by the violence, Mr Ostby said.
We are worried that if there is new major displacement
and new need for major humanitarian assistance that access... will not be
sufficient to deliver the assistance needed - Knut Ostby, UN in Myanmar
Some 4,500 people have been displaced in the fighting in
recent weeks, Mr Ostby noted, adding that the Myanmar authorities have
announced that they intend to “crush” the so-called Arakan Army insurgents.
“I think the situation as far as we know, has not broken
out to major fighting, but there have been more troop build-ups”, Mr Ostby
said, before speaking of his shock at attacks on police outposts last Friday
that claimed 13 officers’ lives.
Noting that humanitarian access to communities in need of
help in Rakhine state “has not improved since 2017” - when some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled
violence there to neighbouring Bangladesh - the UN official warned that
facilities were not in place to cope with yet more mass movement of people.
An estimated 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine state,
the UN official explained.
“We are worried that if there is new major displacement
and new need for major humanitarian assistance that the access we are having
will not be sufficient to deliver the assistance needed”, Mr. Ostby said,
noting that the violence risked affecting “all ethnic groups”.
The latest violence comes amid a wider pattern of
sporadic but at times intense fighting between ethnic groups and the
authorities in Myanmar dating back more than 70 years in some cases, since
independence in January 1948.
Although a ceasefire is in place in northern and eastern
areas of Myanmar, the UN official explained that “it does not include Rakhine
state, and that is why we are worried that there will be new escalation that
would lead to new suffering of the civilian population”.
The United Nations will continue to maintain contact with
local authorities in Rakhine state as well as central Government to “try to do
more on the humanitarian and development side” in Myanmar, Mr Ostby insisted,
noting that “there is a lot more that could be done and should be done, if we
had more access”.
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