Irrawaddy/AFP-May 20
At least 800,000 people in Myanmar need emergency food aid and other assistance after Cyclone Mocha slammed into the conflict-torn country earlier this week, the United Nations said Friday. Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) per hour to Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh on Sunday, with Myanmar’s junta saying 145 people had been killed and media reports suggesting the number was far higher. The UN’s World Food Program described “a trail of devastation” across Myanmar’s Rakhine State, a region that is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who live in displacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict. The cyclone left “houses flattened, roads cut off by uprooted trees, hospitals and schools destroyed, and telecommunications and power lines severely disrupted,” Anthea Webb, WFP’s deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Bangkok. “There are at least 800,000 people in urgent need of emergency food assistance,” she said, adding that “greater needs for food, shelter, water, health and other humanitarian aid are expected to be revealed as we reach more areas.” “The cyclone has made a bad situation much worse for millions of people already struggling to cope in extremely precarious conditions.” Read more at:
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/some-800000-people-affected-by-cyclone-mocha-in-myanmar-un.html
