Burma Campaign UK is urging UN Secretary General António Guterres to travel to Bangladesh to negotiate the opening of aid and trade routes into Rakhine State, Burma.
In November the United Nations Development Programme warned of impending famine in Rakhine State.
- 2 million people face starvation.
- 95% of the population will be living in ‘survival mode’
- The state is expected to produce only 20% of the food it needs.
- There is already a crisis, with well over 600,000 people displaced.
The aid and trade embargo imposed by the Burmese military on areas of Rakhine State which it no longer occupies is a deliberate tactic to use starvation as a tool of oppression.
Rakhine State (also known as Arakan State) is in western Burma, bordering Bangladesh in the North. The largest ethnic group there are Rakhine, but many ethnic and religious minorities live there, including the Rohingya.
The Arakha Army, mostly made up of ethnic Rakhine people, has been fighting to free the state from Burmese military rule and has taken over large parts of the state. The Burmese military have used every tactic they can to try to weaken resistance to their occupation of Rakhine State. They have launched indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery attacks, exploited ethnic and religious tensions to try to divide and rule, and placed strict restrictions on aid and trade, including medicines, seeds and fertiliser, into the areas where they have lost control.
By spring 2025 it is predicted the state will only produce 20% of the food it needs. This is on top of well over 600,000 people who have already fled their homes and jobs (1). Around 250,000 of those are Rohingya, many of whom have fled not just attacks by the Burmese military, but also attacks by the Arakha Army. The Burmese military-imposed trade embargo is creating mass unemployment, and blocking essentials like medicine and agricultural supplies.
The personal intervention of the UN Secretary General provides the best hope of garnering momentum for the significant changes in approach that are required. A business-as-usual approach to this crisis, delegating responsibility to UN agencies or envoys, will not work. It hasn’t worked in the past regarding previous crises. There is no evidential basis to believe this time will be any different.
Trying to negotiate with the Burmese military to allow greater humanitarian access and lift trade restrictions into the areas of Rakhine State now administered by the Arakha Army will not succeed in alleviating this crisis.
The Burmese military is already placing some of the most severe restrictions and conditions on humanitarian aid seen anywhere in the world. These restrictions violate international law. The Burmese military will attempt to leverage the maximum advantage from the process of negotiations, forcing UN and other agencies to submit to extreme conditionality for the sake of limited access.
Instead, a humanitarian corridor from Bangladesh needs to be opened. This should already have happened months ago in response to the growing number of internally displaced people.
“Two million people face starvation, but with political will this is preventable,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “Preventing an impending crisis like this is exactly what the role of the UN Secretary General is for. The United Nations and international community have a track record of failing to act to prevent crises in Burma. Will the UN Secretary General António Guterres allow famine to happen in the same state where the UN failed to act on warnings of Rohingya genocide?”
Burma Campaign UK has launched a petition to UN Secretary General António Guterres calling on him to travel to Bangladesh to open negotiations for aid and trade corridors into Rakhine State. The petition is available here.
The United Nations Development Programme report, Rakhine: A Famine in the Making, is available here.
(1) The UN estimates that almost 600,000 internally displaced people, but local civil society say this is a serious underestimate.