Faced With Threats, Arakan State Aid Workers Quitting

19 August 2013

Local aid workers in Arakan State are quitting their jobs in the face of threats, the Myanmar Times reports. “It has been very difficult for Rakhine [Arakan] staff who are picked on by the local community if they are seen to be helping Muslim people and a lot of them have resigned because of this,” the newspaper quoted an anonymous aid worker as saying. The threats, made via online social media, come amid accusations by Arakan Buddhists that the state’s Rohingya Muslims have received a disproportionate share of humanitarian aid following violence last year between the two groups that displaced about 140,000 people.