[Bangladesh] - UN not given access to Rohingya refugee camps after Cyclone Mocha

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
UN staff say they have not been given permission to help thousands of Rohingya living in displacement camps in Myanmar who are in urgent
need of food, medicine and shelter in the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, which struck the west of the country on Sunday.People living in
Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, said they estimated that about 90% of homes of Rohingya people had been destroyed and more than 100
people killed when winds of more than 150 miles an hour hit the region
However, the refugee agency UNHCR said the Myanmar government had not yet granted access to the camps in Sittwe, home to about 100,000
people
destroyed everything we had
We have nothing to eat, and people have to sleep on the road
pre-existing needsRamanathan Balakrishnan, UN humanitarian coordinatorHe said he witnessed people drown in the flood water in Sittwe,
died in the storm because she was too scared to leave her home in Dar Paing camp in Sittwe
After the cyclone, he found her body
But I had no other choice
Sittwe was the worst affected area, but the category 5 storm also damaged towns further east in Chin, Sagaing and Magway regions.The UN said
on Thursday that 17 townships in Rakhine and four in Chin had been declared natural-disaster-affected areas by the government
Images on social media show trees, buildings, and electricity poles toppled, and debris piled on the ground
The UN said health supplies and water purification tablets for 200,000 people have been sent to Sittwe.ThekayPyin camp in Sittwe, as Cyclone
Mocha approaches
Photograph: Screengrab/Obtained by ReutersOn Tuesday, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Myanmar, said 5.4 million
Balakrishnan said.The Rohingya live in internal displacement camps after being forced from their homes in Myanmar by numerous military
attacks since the 1970s
activist in Europe, said he expected high casualties
they had no freedom of movement
The junta has been committing serious international crimes against the Rohingya for many decades
refugee camp in Sittwe
coordinates humanitarian support for more than 900,000 refugees in Bangladesh, said 5,800 shelters were damaged and 400 destroyed
Health and education centres and water points were damaged by landslides
UNHCR said it has been providing emergency shelter and other services in Bangladesh.The worst conditions were on the southern-most tip of
mainland Bangladesh and in the Nayapara refugee camp, where refugees who lost their homes to a fire two years ago again saw homes
damaged
struggling to rebuild again, we have not got the materials to rebuild the shelters
camps further north, on Sunday, according to the NGO Friendship.The NGO, which runs Friendship Hospital Ukhiya for refugees and the host
This article was updated on 22 May 2023 to clarify that the UN had not been granted permission to access refugee camps, rather than being
actively denied access.
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com