ReliefWeb

HUMANITARIAN FIGURES

642,000 Estimated Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Burma. Of these over 98,000 are living in Kachin and northern Shan States; around 140,000 in Rakhin State; and 5,000 in Mandalay, according to The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC)

824,000 Conflict-affected people are experiencing acute food insecurity and more than 180,000 children and women require life-saving nutrition services, according to the US Agency for International Development

106,000 Estimated civilians remain in long-term displacement camps in Kachin and northern Shan States, many near areas of active conflict, according to the Human Rights Watch

NEWS & HEADLINES

• June: “There is no one who does not miss home”: Progressive Voice, a policy research and advocacy organization released a report on protracted displacement due to armed conflict in Burma. It is a collaborate effort by 15 ethnic civil society organisations working with displaced populations. It reiterated that “The underlying reason for displacement amongst the vast majority of interviewees was a systematic pattern of abuses and oppression that has accompanied the armed conflict and marginalisation raging in Burma for decades”. (Progressive Voice)

• July 17th: The US imposed sanctions against Burma’s top general and three senior officers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the sanctions were prompted in part by Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing’s decision to release, after just a few months, soldiers convicted of extra judicial killings at the village of Inn Din in 2017. (BBC)

• July 25th: The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on human rights and the use of sexual violence by the Burmese military against ethnic minorities in Burma. Rape crimes perpetrated by Burmese soldiers have been a hallmark of abuse in Burma’s civil wars against its ethnic groups. Women in the Chin, Karen, Kachin, Rakhine, Shan and more states have been heavily affected. (Human Rights Watch)