(UCAN): Thousands are still waiting for shelters in western Rakhine state, Myanmar, nearly two months after Cyclone Mocha struck the country on May 14, Church officials and aid workers say.
Church workers are helping to repair damaged homes and dig wells under a rehabilitation programme with the help of Caritas International for villages in Kyauktaw township, said Father Nereus Tun Min, director of Catholic Karuan Pyay.
“Local churches are trying to respond by providing cash assistance and rehabilitation programmes in some villages. People are still in need of proper shelters as the cyclone damaged thousands of houses,” Tun Min explained.
Cash assistance was provided to 500 families in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, where the priest accompanied Bishop Alexander Pyone Cho of Pyay. They also visited Kyauktaw township to assess the damage there.
Of the 7.9 million people affected by the cyclone, some 1.6 million are in need of urgent aid across five states, namely Rakhine, Chin, Sagaing, Magway and Kachin, according to the United Nations.
Local churches are trying to respond by providing cash assistance and rehabilitation programmes in some villages. People are still in need of proper shelters as the cyclone damaged thousands of houses
The UN has appealed for US$333 million [$2.6 billion] to assist the 1.6 million people, many of whom have lost their homes.
A Church social worker from Sittwe said people living on the outskirts of the town are in urgent need of proper shelter.
“Affected communities can now access water and electricity but most of them are desperately in need of shelters as the rainy season starts,” Albert, who uses just one name, said.
On June 8 Myanmar’s military regime suspended transportation used by international agencies and local humanitarian groups to access and aid victims of the cyclone.
“Access to humanitarian response to the affected areas remains challenging, as the approval of travel authorisation for the movement of staff and supplies across Rakhine is still being determined,” UNICEF said in a July 3 report.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, slammed the junta for compounding an already dire situation on the ground by imposing restrictions on aid.
The restrictions brought “further suffering and misery to wide swathes of the population in the west and northwest of the country,” Shamdasani said in a July 1 statement.
