Rohingya refugees gather near a fence during a government organised media tour, to a no-man's land between Myanmar and Bangladesh, near Taungpyolatyar village, Maung Daw, northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, June 29, 2018
MYANMAR’S Rakhine state, which is home to the Rohingya minority and engulfed in a conflict between government forces and a powerful ethnic group, could face an imminent acute famine, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
In a damning report published on Thursday, the UN agency says that “a perfect storm is brewing” that has put western Rakhine “on the precipice of an unprecedented disaster.”
The report, titled: Rakhine: A Famine in the Making, points to a chain of interlinked developments, including restrictions on goods from elsewhere in Myanmar and from neighbouring Bangladesh, an absence of income for residents, hyperinflation, significantly reduced food production and a lack of essential services and a social safety net.
ROGER McKENZIE expounds on the motivation that drove him to write a book that anticipates a dawn of a new, fully liberated Africa – the land of his ancestors
While much attention is focused on Israel’s aggression, we cannot ignore the conflicts in Africa, stoked by Western imperialism and greed for natural resources, if we’re to understand the full picture of geopolitics today, argues ROGER McKENZIE
