Asia-PacificMyanmar

Health crisis hits Rohingyas in western Myanmar

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Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar, who have been forced to leave their homes due to Buddhist aggression, are now facing a growing health crisis.

Media reports say Rohingya refugees living in camps in the western Rakhine State are grappling with a severe shortage of medicine.

“I think my child would have made it if someone was here to help,” a Rohigya mother told media outlets as she cradled the girl’s shrouded, almost weightless body in her arms.

International aid workers also say Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s crowded refugee camps are in desperate need of food and medical aid.

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

The problem began in February when Myanmar’s government expelled aid groups providing health to more than half a million Rohingyas in the Rakhine State. Later in March, attacks by a Buddhist mob on aid groups forced the rest of aid workers to flee.

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 as a result of an escalation in sectarian violence.

The United Nations has called on Myanmar to help aid workers return to the state, which has been torn by violence in recent years.

The government pledged to allow most NGOs to return but so far only food distribution by the World Food Program has resumed.

Hundreds of people– most of them Rohingyas, have been killed in Myanmar since the outbreak of sectarian violence back in 2012.

According to the UN, the Rohingya Muslims are one of the world’s most persecuted communities.

The Myanmar government has been repeatedly criticized by human rights groups for failing to protect the Muslims.

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