UN calls for millions more in donor aid to Myanmar
The United Nations says millions of dollars more in humanitarian aid is urgently needed to help more than 110,000 people displaced by violence in Myanmar’s strife-torn Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s UN humanitarian co-ordinator, Ashok Nigam, said late on Wednesday that donors had already pitched in US$27 million, but that an additional US$41 million was needed to meet humanitarian needs through June next year.
Violence in June, and again in late October, between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims killed about 200 people and left at least 110,000 displaced, the vast majority of them Muslims.
Authorities in the Buddhist country have been accused of bias against the Muslim community.
Myanmar’s border affairs minister, Lieutenant-General Thein Htay, promised to ensure that humanitarian aid would be smoothly delivered and that aid workers would not face intimidation.
