The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported Thursday that over 570,000 people are likely displaced in Myanmar’s Rakhine State due to ongoing conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and the Arakan Army, with over 3 million people displaced by conflict and flooding across the country.
Adding to the humanitarian situation, Myanmar has been hit by severe flooding since early September. Torrential monsoon rains and the remnants of Typhoon Yagi have affected an estimated 1 million people across 70 of the country’s 330 townships, causing significant damage to crops, farmland, and livestock. According to UNOCHA, this has further exacerbated the vulnerabilities of conflict-affected communities. Humanitarian responses face significant challenges, including blocked supply routes, communication blackouts, and restricted access to areas outside Sittwe.
As the humanitarian crisis continues to evolve, international organizations are calling for the upholding of international law to protect civilians and humanitarian access to those in need. The situation remains fluid, with displacement patterns shifting rapidly in response to ongoing conflict and environmental pressures. The complex interplay of military actions, ethnic tensions, and natural disasters underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive and sustained international effort to address the multifaceted emergency in Myanmar.
The conflict has had a particularly severe impact on religious minorities within Myanmar. The UN Human Rights Office documented serious human rights violations and abuses against the minority Muslim Rohingya people by both the military and the Arakan Army. These include extrajudicial killings, some involving beheadings, abductions, forced recruitment, indiscriminate bombardments of towns and villages using drones and artillery, and arson attacks.
There is an ongoing genocide case against Myanmar concerning its treatment of the Rohingya in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ unanimously ruled in July to allow seven countries to intervene in the case against Myanmar. This decision enables Maldives, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom to participate in the legal process, potentially influencing international responses to the situation UNOCHA describes in Rakhine State. As the crisis deepens, it has become a focal point of regional diplomacy. The current ASEAN summit in Laos, running from October 8-11, 2024, is primarily focused on Myanmar’s failure to implement ASEAN’s “Five-Point Consensus”, a peace plan aimed at resolving the country’s crisis.
Additionally, a report released by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) in January documented the targeting of Christian churches in Chin State, Myanmar’s only majority Christian state. The report found a correlation between areas placed under martial law by the military junta and those subjected to airstrikes, suggesting that churches may have been strategically targeted to reduce morale in areas of resistance.
