UN calls for access to Kachin refugees in KIO area

TWO BURMESE SOLDIERS (RIGHT) AND KACHIN REFUGEE CAMPS IN PANGSAI IN NORTHERN SHAN STATE NEAR CHINA BORDER WERE BURNED DOWN BY THE GOVERNMENT SOLLIERS OF IB NO.240 ON NOV.28. PHOTO: KACHIN NEWS.
 

During her visit to Burma this week the United Nation's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, publicly urged Burma's government to allow the UN to resume aid shipments to refugee camps in non-government controlled parts of Kachin state held by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).

“The UN has not been allowed access to provide badly needed assistance to some 39,000 people in areas outside the Government’s control since July 2012. Local partners are providing food and other assistance but their stocks are depleted and with the winter months approaching getting more supplies in is critical,” said Amos in a statement released by her office.

“We hope the Government will give us permission to travel to these areas and provide the aid that is so desperately needed,” Amos said.

The deteriorating humanitarian situation for internally displaced people in Kachin and parts of western Shan state follows 18 months of heavy fighting between Burma's army and the KIO, the country's second strongest armed ethnic group.

From April to early July convoys jointly organized by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Program (WFP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (UNOCHA) and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) were able to make regular visits to a series of internally displaced peoples camps in and around Mai Ja Yang, the second largest town under KIO control. These convoys were halted in July when the government refused permission for the UN to make any more trips to areas controlled by the KIO.

While neither the UN or Burma's government has provided an explanation as to why the convoys were halted, the suspension of the aid shipments took place amidst a deteriorating relationship between UN agencies operating in Burma and the government, that culminated in the arrest of several UN aid workers in Arakan state in June. At least three of the UN workers were eventually released in August following a presidential pardon. Speaking at a press conference late last month Tomas Quintana, the UN special envoy for the situation of Human Rights in Burma, revealed that one local staff person from the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) remains in prison as do four other staff from unnamed international NGOs who were also arrested in Arakan around the same time.

Despite Amos's public appeal it remains unclear when or if President Thein Sein's government will allow the UN to resume aid shipments. On December 12, 2011, a small team from the UN was able to bring basic supplies to refugee camps in Laiza. At the time of the UN's visit the world body claimed the trip to the KIO's de-facto capital would be followed by subsequent visits to the area, the UN however has so far been unable to return to Laiza since. Kachin aid workers operating in Laiza say that the humanitarian situation in these camps is quite severe. They expect things will get worse as cooler winter temperatures set in.

According to the statement issued by Amos the UN estimates there are now 75,000 internally displaced people in Kachin and parts of western Shan state. Aid workers on the ground say this figure is too low and the true number of displaced people is more than 100,000.