Junta Restrictions Cause Food Shortages Among Rohingyas

By Clive ParkerSeptember 23, 2005
Claims by an ethnic Rohingya organization that restrictions from the Rangoon government are causing food shortages in Arakan State were confirmed by the head of the World Food Programme in Burma today.

Bhim Udas, the head of WFP’s operations in Burma, said his organization had had to wait more than three months for a permit to transport food aid to Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, three predominantly Rohingya townships in Arakan State.


WFP has been operating in Arakan State for the past 11 years, providing food for an estimated 300,000 people. Despite this, the Burmese authorities have given no explanation for the recent delay in granting access, Udas said. Rangoon’s Department of Relief and Social Welfare was unavailable for comment.

The Arakan Rohingya National Organization said today the situation in these three townships is grave, claiming a 5-year-old girl died this month from starvation and that others are on the brink. “The Rohingya villagers are in [a] famine-like situation,” a statement said.

A late monsoon this year has delayed the rice harvest, Udas said, while food aid has been disappearing across the border into Bangladesh recently, exacerbating food shortages.

Udas explained the junta is practicing what it calls a “limited supply” of food aid to the Rohingya population as it is fearful supplies will continue to move across Arakan’s border with Bangladesh in the future.

However, Udas told The Irrawaddy that WFP had not witnessed any signs of starvation in northern Arakan State during the latest food shortages.

Having this month finally received the necessary permit to transport rice and food aid from Rangoon to Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, the WFP says that two weeks ago it was able to offer some supplies to vulnerable groups including young children.

“There is progress,” Udas said. “When our food starts moving from Sittwe to Northern Rakhine [Arakan] State [and then] to the three townships in which we are working— Maungdaw, Buthidaung and some parts of Rathedaung—and at least in those three areas… I can say that the food situation will improve and the prices will go down.”

More than 200,000 tonnes of food has already reached Sittwe, Udas added.

ARNO has accused the Burmese military of controlling the rice market in Rohingya areas and forcing the price up to nearly four times that in the capital of Sittwe. It also cites examples of Burmese military personnel arresting those trying to transport rice or offer it to hungry Rohingyas.

This latest example of restrictions on WFP efforts to offer food aid in Burma follows a call by the head of the organization, James Morris, during a trip last month to Rangoon, for the junta to change its ways.

Following the visit, Morris issued a statement in Bangkok saying: “Current agricultural and marketing policies, and restrictions on the movement of people, make it very difficult for many of those at risk to merely subsist.”
Muslim Rohingyas are unable to move freely and are denied Burmese citizenship by the junta, making it difficult for them to secure sources of food from outside their villages.

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