YANGON: A UN official has urged Myanmar to grant aid workers “predictable, sustained access” to Rakhine state, where fighting between government troops and rebels has displaced nearly 33,000 people since late last year, saying lack of aid has cost lives.
Ursula Mueller, a UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said authorities had turned down her requests to meet those displaced by the conflict in a region barred to most aid groups since the fighting broke out.
“We need access – predictable, sustained access – to reach the people in need,” Muller told Reuters late on Tuesday, at the end of a six-day visit to the southeast Asian nation.
“If the assistance, including mobile clinics, cannot get to the people, they just don’t have the services and their needs are not being met and some people are dying.”
Reuters could not immediately reach a government spokesman to seek comment.
Rakhine has been in the global spotlight since 2017, after roughly 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks crossed into neighboring Bangladesh.
UN investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing.
More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state.
During her visit, Mueller met senior officials in the capital, Naypyitaw, including state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi who said she was working toward “development and social cohesion” in Rakhine.
“I was pointing out the humanitarian needs that are existing that need to be urgently met,” she added.
Mueller also visited camps outside Sittwe, the state’s capital, where thousands of Rohingya have been confined since a previous bout of violence in 2012. Most lack citizenship and face curbs on movement and access to basic services.
Myanmar has been working with the UN on a strategy to close the camps, but it amounts to building new, more permanent homes in the same place rather than letting people return to areas from which they fled, Reuters reported last year.
Mueller, who is also a deputy coordinator for emergency relief, said she had discussed the strategy with officials.
“It’s not enough to erect buildings on the same site while the underlying causes are not addressed,” she added. “People have no freedom of movement. They are losing hope after seven years in this camp.”
‘People are dying’: UN official urges aid access for Myanmar’s Rakhine state
‘People are dying’: UN official urges aid access for Myanmar’s Rakhine state
- Rakhine has been in the global spotlight since 2017, after roughly 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks
- UN investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson
Machado seeks Pope Leo’s support for Venezuela’s transition during Vatican meeting
- Machado is touring Europe and the United States after escaping Venezuela in early 2025
- The pope called for Venezuela to remain independent following the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro by US forces
ROME: Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday, during which the Venezuelan leader asked him to intercede for the release of hundreds of political prisoners held in the Latin American country.
The meeting, which hadn’t been previously included in the list of Leo’s planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details.
Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
“Today I had the blessing and honor of being able to share with His Holiness and express our gratitude for his continued support of what is happening in our country,” Machado said in a statement following the meeting.
“I also conveyed to him the strength of the Venezuelan people who remain steadfast and in prayer for the freedom of Venezuela, and I asked him to intercede for all Venezuelans who remain kidnapped and disappeared,” she added.
Machado also held talks with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who was Nuncio in Venezuela from 2009 to 2013.
Pope Leo has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after US forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro in his compound in Caracas and took him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.
Leo had said he was following the developments in Venezuela with “deep concern,” and urged the protection of human and civil rights in the Latin American country.
Venezuela’s opposition, backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the US, had vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But US President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.
Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Machado, are in exile or prison.
After winning the 2025 Nobel Prize for Peace, Machado said she’d like to give it to or share with Trump.
Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced. Trump has coveted and openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office in January 2025.
The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize — the Norwegian Nobel Institute — said, however, that once it’s announced, the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.
“The decision is final and stands for all time,” it said in a short statement last week.
