Statement at the 53rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Interactive Dialogue on written update of the High Commissioner on Myanmar
Delivered by Kyaw Win
Thank you Mr. President,
CIVICUS and the Burma Human Rights Network thank the High Commissioner for his report on the human rights impact of the denial of humanitarian access in Myanmar.
Since the coup, more than a million people, especially from ethnic and religious minority communities, have been displaced by the military junta’s indiscriminate airstrikes and systematic atrocities. During the past two years when humanitarian needs have been acute, the junta has routinely and deliberately blocked, confiscated, and destroyed lifesaving aid to prevent it from reaching people in need. Further, the junta’s amendments to the 2014 NGO registration law formalised further restrictions on civil society and humanitarian actions including banking, procurement of aid items and movement of aid workers.
Compounding these issues, on 14 May, Cyclone Mocha devastated communities in Chin, Rakhine, Kachin states and Magway and Sagaing Regions, impacting over 1.6 million people. The most severely hit areas were Rathedaung and Sittwe townships in Rakhine State. In the wake of the cyclone, the junta issued a notice blocking humanitarian organisations from delivering deliver life-saving aid to impacted communities in Rakhine State where 130,000 Rohingya remain trapped under apartheid like conditions. The cyclone has provided the junta with an opportunity to continue its genocidal campaign against the Rohingya.
Despite these restrictions, civil society groups, diaspora communities, Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations and the National Unity Government have been at the forefront to effectively provide emergency aid risking death, arrest, torture, and harassment. They must be supported to continue to do so.
BHRN and CIVICUS call on the Council and the UN to take steps to protect humanitarian groups and provide flexible direct funding to them to support their ability to assist the population-in-need.
We thank you.
Civic space in Myanmar is rated as "closed" by the CIVICUS Monitor
