People are dying, UN official says, urging aid access to Rakhine state
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 2018, 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,” Mueller said 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.”
Rakhine has been in the global spotlight since 2017, after 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks crossed into neighbouring B...
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