×

Myanmar Begins Evacuation As Cyclone Mahasen Draws Near

Authorities in Myanmar have started the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, before a cyclone reaches camps in low-lying … Continue reading Myanmar Begins Evacuation As Cyclone Mahasen Draws Near


Authorities in Myanmar have started the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, before a cyclone reaches camps in low-lying regions that have been their home since ethnic and religious unrest last year.

According to the Disaster Management Centre, many left their homes after orders from government officials, but came right back refusing to abandon their makeshift tents and huts and so far, Cyclone Mahasen has already killed at least seven people and displaced 3,881 in Sri Lanka.

The storm is moving north over the Bay of Bengal and is expected to reach land tomorrow, Thursday hitting north of Chittagong in Bangladesh, the management confirmed.

The Myanmar government had planned to move 38,000 internally displaced people, most of them Rohingya Muslims as of yesterday but many have refused to relocate from camps in Rakhine State in the west of the country, suspicious of the authorities’ intentions.

At least 192 people were killed in June and October last year in violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya, who are denied citizenship by the government in Myanmar and considered by many Buddhists to be immigrants from Bangladesh.

The United Nations (UN) Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is helping Myanmar’s government in Rakhine state, said the storm appeared to have weakened but could still threaten 8.2 million people in northeast India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

There are up to 250,000 Rohingya living in southern Bangladesh, many of whom fled from Myanmar in the early 1990s complaining of abuses by the army.

About 140,000 people were displaced in June and a second wave of violence in October.

Even before the storm developed, the UN had said about 69,000, most of them Rohingya Muslims were living in Rakhine State in accommodations at risk of flooding and other damage during the rainy season, which starts this month.