The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent research group, said in a report earlier this month that as of Nov. 2, at least 1,650,661 people had been forced to escape conflict in regions that include Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Chin and Kayah in the more than 21 months since the military took power in Myanmar.
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar prompted an agreement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the junta to facilitate the immediate distribution of aid to refugees in the country through the military regime’s Ministry of International Cooperation at a May 6 meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
Nonetheless, aid groups—including UN agencies and NGOs—say they have been blocked from doing so or that the supplies they have handed over to the junta remain undelivered under the pretense of security risks. Neither the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance nor the junta’s Union Minister for International Cooperation responded to RFA’s request for comment.
The new figures for refugees of conflict in Myanmar came as reporting by RFA found that authorities had arrested at least 388 Rohingyas who tried to flee refugee camps in Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh for Malaysia between Oct. 17 and Nov. 11.
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