‘Rohingya Muslims in dire conditions’

Volunteer workers from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday that at least eight people have died and 31 babies have been delivered under unsanitary conditions since the beginning of the year.

The critical situation has particularly hit women and children.

Media outlets quoted an MSF local volunteer as saying: “We tried to send a pregnant woman to another village past the hill that has a doctor, but she died.”

Reports say hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are suffering from severe shortage of food and drinking water. Humanitarian aid deliveries have slowed down in Rakhine state as a result of an escalation in sectarian violence.

Several aid organizations have recently warned that there are “high rates of chronic malnutrition in the camps” and “children are at particular risk.” Hundreds of international aid workers were evacuated from Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, after UN-run warehouses were attacked on March 27. The United Nations has called on Myanmar to help aid workers return to Rakhine state, which has been torn by violence in recent years.