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Myanmar Crackdown: Thousands of Children’s Lives at Stake

Myanmar Crackdown: Thousands of Children’s Lives at Stake
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As Myanmar's military crackdown against Rohingya Muslims escalates, fears are growing for the lives of several thousand children in northwest Burma suffering from severe malnutrition and lack of medical care yet denied vital aid.

Myanmar Crackdown: Thousands of Children’s Lives at Stake

Relatively, UN agencies were unable to maintain lifesaving services for more than 3,000 registered children, mostly from the minority Rohingya Muslim community, in two townships of northern Rakhine state after the military sealed off the area during operations in response to the alleged killing of nine policemen in attacks on border posts on 9 October.

Following an international outcry, the military allowed the world agencies to resume limited aid operations in Buthidaung township in mid-December and last month in Maungdaw North.

However, scores of the children originally receiving aid still have not been reached while others needing help were feared also to be succumbing to severe malnourishment.

Aid workers classify the children as "indirect victims" of the conflict. They say they may be dead, missing or among the almost 70,000 who have fled across the border to Bangladesh.

"We have reports of children who died from malnutrition," Chris Lewa, director of Arakan Project, an NGO operating for years in northern Rakhine, told The Independent. "The indirect victims of the conflict might be more than those killed," she said.

Arakan Project estimates that some 200 people were killed by the military. Other estimates range up to 1,000.

The death rate for acutely malnourished children left without support is between 30 to 50 per cent if not assisted within the first weeks, according to the World Health Organization [WHO].

"We know from experience that as soon as there is closure then infections and diseases spread. So people who are coming [to get aid] might be completely new beneficiaries who have now become malnourished," said one aid worker who asked not to be named.

The military said last week it had ceased operations but the conflict zone remains closed to all foreigners. Non-Burmese UN staffers have had limited access, making full counts and assessments impossible.

The 3,466 children were among a total of 13,155 listed in surveys last year as suffering from severe acute malnutrition in the two townships.

An additional 60,000 children had been categorized as suffering from moderate acute malnutrition. Most belong to the stateless Rohingya minority living in utter poverty and deprived of basic rights and services for years.

"Children were receiving lifesaving and prevention treatment, and children in need who don't receive it have a high risk of dying," Sabah Barigou, head of the Burma nutrition unit at the World Food Program [WFP], told The Independent.

Children belonging to a second group of 3,200 under a separate "moderate acute malnutrition" program are now feared to have fallen into the category of severely acutely malnourished, with their lives at risk if help is not promptly resumed, senior UN sources said.

Source: The Independent, Edited by website team

 

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