With hostilities in Myanmar escalating, sparked by a military coup in 2021, and millions of people plunged into a deepening humanitarian crisis, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday urged the country's neighbors to "leverage their influence" to achieve peace and a political solution. Meanwhile, an estimated 1 million people in Myanmar are also suffering from the effects of recent deadly floods.
“The humanitarian situation is spiraling. One-third of the population is in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Millions have been forced to flee their homes,” Guterres told a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, Lao, today.
In Myanmar, 18.6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance - the fifth-largest number in the world. 6 million of them are children. More than 3 million people are displaced throughout the country, mostly due to conflict. Since early September, 1 million people - many already internally displaced - have also been affected by torrential monsoon rains and the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi.
The Secretary-General said that seven years after the forced mass displacement of the Rohingya, “durable solutions seem a distant reality.”
In 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh following a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State. They joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had previously sought refuge in the country.
In Bangladesh, nearly a million Rohingya refugees remain in camps in a coastal region of the Bay of Bengal that is extremely vulnerable to cyclones, floods, landslides, fires, and the effects of climate change.
At the same time, Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority is facing another wave of deadly violence. This time, however, the perpetrators are said to be the Arakan Army (AA), one of several ethnic groups fighting the country's ruling junta, as well as Myanmar's security forces.
“I support strengthened cooperation between the UN Special Envoy and the ASEAN Chair on innovative ways to promote a Myanmar-led process, including through the effective and comprehensive implementation of the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus and beyond,” Guterres said.
“The people of Myanmar need peace. And I call on all countries to leverage their influence towards an inclusive political solution to the conflict and deliver the peaceful future that the people of Myanmar deserve.”
Myanmar has been engulfed in a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of civilians since 2021, when the country's military seized power in a coup. In recent months, a coalition of ethnic rebel forces, including the AA, has escalated its offensive to oust the junta.
Armed conflict is ongoing in the northwest, northeast, southeast, and Rakhine state, forcing civilians from their homes and causing deaths and injuries.
The UN chief's appeal at the ASEAN-UN summit comes as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warns that millions of people across Myanmar remain in acute need. Their plight has been exacerbated by torrential rains and catastrophic flooding, amid a lack of humanitarian access and insufficient relief funding.
As civilians continue to face the dangers of an expanding conflict, humanitarians say an estimated 1 million people are suffering from the impact of devastating floods.
Since September 9, torrential monsoon rains and the remnants of Typhoon Yagi have submerged 70 of the country's 330 townships. The flooding has caused significant damage, particularly in the northwest, southeast and Rakhine state.
OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the flooding had been deadly, with more than 360 people reportedly killed and many more injured in several regions. The floods devastated crops, farmland and livestock, destroying the livelihoods of vulnerable communities.
While local volunteers cleaned up areas where floodwaters had receded, persistent rains and swollen rivers threatened further flooding, he said.
According to OCHA, critical needs in all affected areas include access to safe drinking water, hygiene items, medicines, food, shelter and humanitarian cash assistance. Ongoing flooding is likely to exacerbate the spread of waterborne diseases and increase the need for urgent health, nutrition and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) services.
Acute watery diarrhea, dengue fever, malaria, cholera and measles are already threatening children in Myanmar.
Laerke said the response so far has included food assistance for more than 150,000 people in the southeast, northwest and Rakhine state, with plans to reach an additional 73,000 people in the southeast. More than 80,000 people in the northwest have received water, sanitation and hygiene assistance, and thousands more have received shelter, non-food items, education materials and other types of assistance.
To scale up the emergency response, Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya on September 30 allocated US$4 million from the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). Donors have pledged more than $3 million in additional contributions.
However, humanitarian organizations responding to people affected by flooding and conflict are hampered by damaged roads and bridges, restrictions imposed by parties to the conflict, violence and severe underfunding.
The $994 million Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) is currently only 29 percent funded, with $284 million received. OCHA says more resources are urgently needed to allow its partners to respond to surging needs.
Hunger is also on the rise throughout the country. Some 12.9 million people - nearly 25 percent of the population - are projected to be food insecure in 2024, with an increased risk of malnutrition, especially among children and pregnant women. The health system is in disarray and basic medicines are running out. An estimated 12 million people in Myanmar will need emergency health assistance this year alone.