UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Violence against ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State is putting "all civilians at risks" with humanitarian activities either suspended or severely interrupted and tens of thousands of people uprooted from their homes, the chief UN spokesman said Monday.
Stephane Dujarric said that as of Sunday, 313,000 Rohingyas, mostly women and children, who left Rakhine since Aug. 25, have arrived at Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh with "no indication that the pace of these arrivals is slowing."
The Myanmar government is reporting all 3,500 Muslims living in three camps in Rathedaung Township have also left for Bangladesh, he told a briefing.
"Colleagues tell us that the violence in northern Rakhine state is putting all civilians at risks with tens of thousands of people uprooted from their homes in the area. Humanitarian activities in Rakhine have either been suspended or severely interrupted, resulting in 170,000 people not receiving the food that they usually receive and 15,000 people not receiving primary health care," said Dujarric.
"The United Nations and its partners are helping the (Bangladeshi) government and the local community respond to the situation by providing food, shelter, health care and water among other means of support," Dujarric said. "The UN and the government are also urgently looking at solutions to allocate land to accommodate new arrivals."
"The scale and speed of the influx of people from Myanmar has overwhelmed capacity on the ground and additional resources are needed," he said. "Aid agencies have prepared a preliminary resource plan of 77 million U.S. dollars to deliver urgent lifesaving assistance to the over 300,000 new arrivals" in Bangladesh, the spokesman said.
