Local volunteer groups providing relief aid for the most vulnerable populations in the worst-affected areas of cyclone-hit northern Rakhine State have called on international agencies to urgently deliver humanitarian assistance, saying they are struggling to meet victims’ long-term needs and can’t cover all of the storm-affected areas.
Cyclone Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 km per hour (120 miles per hour) to Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh on May 14, collapsing buildings and causing a storm surge that damaged farmland, roads, crops and wells. Myanmar’s junta has officially put the death toll at 148. The UN’s humanitarian affairs office said it was seeking $333 million to help provide shelter, medical facilities, food and clean water in affected areas ahead of the rainy season.
However, most international aid agencies say they are still waiting for the junta’s approval to carry out assistance operations on the ground.
A local volunteer who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals from the junta said storm-hit communities need urgent humanitarian assistance from international agencies as local volunteer groups can only provide temporary or short-term assistance.
“We provided urgent aid including tarpaulin sheets to Thea Khon villagers in collaboration with three other groups. We also encouraged the distraught villagers to hold on until other help arrives.” Thea Khon is one of the hard-hit villages in the state.
Last week, the group also provided urgent food supplies to five villages in Pauktaw Township and four villages in Sittwe Township that were completely or partially destroyed by Cyclone Mocha.
“The truth is we have not been able to help every village because nearly all villages were damaged by the storm. Help from local groups alone won’t be sufficient to enable a full recovery,” he said.
Local volunteer groups in Rakhine assisted the evacuation effort before Cyclone Mocha made landfall and continue to deliver urgent food supplies and materials to provide temporary shelter to the hardest-hit areas.
“We also suffered losses during the storm. Four vehicles including three ambulances were damaged, as was our office. But we are trying our best to provide assistance to people,” he said.
However, the group is concerned about the delay in humanitarian aid from UN agencies as local groups cannot handle the situation in the long term.
“Our group relies mainly on donations in order to help the storm-hit communities. We can only hold on for another month,” a volunteer said.
One local volunteer said that rising prices and limited funding have hindered their group’s ability to provide sufficient aid, and many poor communities affected by the storm in Rathedaung and Kyauktaw townships are still waiting for aid to arrive.
“We want to continue to help storm-hit communities in remote areas where minority ethnic communities live [in Rakhine State] but we don’t have enough funding yet,” a volunteer said.
Another local volunteer group made up mostly of members of Rakhine’s younger generation donated food supplies to storm-hit communities in Sittwe Township including a Rohingya village.
“We donated 15 rice sacks in Bayda Village on Saturday as we heard they ran out of food supplies, but I am worried that they will run out again, as the rations of rice are not sufficient,” a spokesperson for the group said.
The donated rice of 2 kg per family was only expected to last one day, as most of the families in the village have five to 12 members.
“We try our best to help the villages that desperately need urgent food supplies, but we saw some families have over 10 members in Bayda Village. So, the rice will last only one day for those families,” he said.
At least 23 people were killed and 97 fishing boats were destroyed in Bayda, also known as Bawgadip, one of the fishing villages in Bu Pin Village-tract, which has 393 households.
The junta donated 300,000 kyats (about US$140) to bereaved families in Bayda for each loved one lost in the storm, according to local sources.
“We received two or three packets of instant noodles per family from the [junta] government,” another villager said.
