AFP/ Dhaka Tribune

Published: May 19, 2023 5:12 PM | Last updated: May 19,2023 5:17 PM

At least 800,000 people inMyanmar need emergency food aid and other assistance after Cyclone Mochaslammed into the conflict-torn country earlier this week, the United Nationssaid on Friday.

Mocha brought lashing rain andwinds of up to 195 kilometres per hour to Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladeshon Sunday, with Myanmar's junta saying 145 people had been killed and mediareports suggesting the number was far higher.

The UN's World Food Program (WFP)described "a trail of devastation" across Myanmar's Rakhine State, aregion that is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who live indisplacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict.

The cyclone left "housesflattened, roads cut off by uprooted trees, hospitals and schools destroyed,and telecommunications and power lines severely disrupted," Anthea Webb,WFP's deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told reporters inGeneva via video-link from Bangkok.

"There are at least 800,000people in urgent need of emergency food assistance," she said, adding that"greater needs for food, shelter, water, health and other humanitarian aidare expected to be revealed as we reach more areas."

And while Bangladesh was spared adirect hit, "nearly half a million Bangladeshis and thousands of Rohingyarefugees have lost their homes and assets", she said.

Webb said that WFP had startedits response to Mocha before the storm hit, reaching 28,000 people inBangladesh near the Myanmar border with advance cash aid to help them prepare.

And, she said, as soon as theworst of the storm passed, the agency had reached thousands of refugees withemergency food assistance, and were working "around the clock" toresume their regular food support.

In Myanmar, WFP had begunemergency food distributions to families in evacuation shelters in Rakhinestate and the neighbouring Magway region.

The agency, she said, aimed toreach at least 800,000 people in the worst affected areas of Rakhine, Magwayand Chin -- almost half of them already displaced by conflict -- for an initialthree months.

"In both countries, theneeds are immense," Webb said.

She pointed out that fundingshortages had forced WFP in March to reduce the value of food vouchers forrefugees living in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh to just 10 US cents per meal.

"And we will have to cut itagain in June unless funding is secured," she said, adding that WFPurgently needs $56 million until the end of the year to help Rohingya refugeesthere.

In Myanmar, meanwhile, the UNagency needs $60 million to provide emergency assistance to 2.1 millioninternally displaced and vulnerable people, including the 800,000 hit by Mocha,she said.

"The cyclone has made a badsituation much worse for millions of people already struggling to cope inextremely precarious conditions."