Urgently needed food and blankets for 1,000 Ponna Kyunt refugees

Narinjara News, 7 January 2022

Over 1,000 IDPs taking shelter in two camps of Kanan Taung village under Ponna Kyunt township, 16 miles north of the Arakan capital city of Sittwe, are in urgent need of food and blankets as the cold winter days begin.

The internally displaced families are taking refuge in the train station IDP camp and the agricultural field camp.

Ko Kyaw San, leader of the Kanan Taung village-tract informed that the ACRO NGO donated Kyat 15,000 on 31 December for the rations as per person for two weeks.

“Even though it was not sufficient, we managed with it. If donors will not come forward, the refugees will find it too difficult to survive,” said the villager leader while talking to Narinjara News.

Presently, IDPs are using tarpaulins as their roofs & walls. They are living in dormitories which was constructed to cover those tarpaulins.

"Now we are building small dormitories on the ground. Most of the houses are created with the tarpaulins. But those cannot prevent the cold wave from affecting the inmates. Elderly refugees and children are now suffering from fevers. As the winter days begin, we need blankets for those children and aged refugees,” he added.

Ma Mi Khaing, who fled the battle to take shelter in Kanan Taung village agricultural camp, said, “It’s not like our home where we can do works. We need support from the donors. Presently we are going to mountains and forest areas to find vegetables. We have not taken fish or meat items for many days.”

So many refugees, particularly the children are facing malnutrition.

In the train station camp, there are 56 families (including 114 men and 145 women) with a total of 259 people are taking shelter. The other camp is supporting 174 families (346 men and 415 women) with a total of 761 people.

The refugees hail from Budh Dao village (under Ponna Kyunt township) as well as Chaung Tu, Kun Own Suu and Day Wan villages (under Kyauk Taw township), who escaped the war in their localities.

On 29 September last, soon after the Arakan Army (AA) members attacked a military council column near Buddaw village, the 539th battalion ofthe military council based in Kansao (Kyauk  Taw township), the 550th battalion of Ponna Kyunt and Sittwe based armed forces started firing
heavy weapons in the locality. Most of the scaring villagers of the locality left their villages to the safer places.

The AA and the government forces have gone for a peace deal in Rakhine State, but the junta soldiers continue to be stationed near those villages. Now the villagers are afraid of returning to their places, said a resident of Yaut Nyo Daung village.

Due to the gun fighting in Rakhine State and some southern areas of Chin State until October last year, over 16,000 people fled their villages. On 19 October, the international organization revealed that total number of people who had fled their places due to conflict situation will be more than 90,000.