Skip to main content
Myanmar's Rakhine state faces famine, says UN
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.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
An Israeli army tank maneuvers in the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel, May 4, 2025
World / 4 May 2025
4 May 2025

Ministers vote to escalate war on starving Palestinians

Features / 29 April 2025
29 April 2025

As global fascism grows, ROGER McKENZIE urges the left to reclaim May Day’s revolutionary roots — not as an act of nostalgia, but as fuel for building a ‘community of resistance’ against exploitation and the rise of fascism

Palestinians inspect the remains of a displacement tent hit
World / 18 April 2025
18 April 2025