BANGKOK: The Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is in negotiations with Myanmar’s ruling junta, its armed opponents and its neighbours to provide cross-border humanitarian aid to the war-torn country, said its chief on Wednesday.
Myanmar has been facing conflict since February 2021 when top generals ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking widespread protests that grew into an armed rebellion challenging the powerful military.
With wide areas of the country in turmoil, about a third of Myanmar’s 55 million people require humanitarian aid but the ICRC cannot operate in many areas because of access restrictions and security risks, said Mirjana Spoljaric.
“There’s a total absence in certain regions of medical services, I mean, a complete collapse,” Spoljaric told Western media.
During a visit to Myanmar that concluded this week, Mirjana said she told junta chief Min Aung Hlaing that the ICRC has the ability to provide more assistance.
In a bid to push more assistance into Myanmar, the ICRC is engaging multiple parties on the possibility of sending aid through neighbours such as Thailand and Bangladesh.
In March, Thailand delivered some humanitarian assistance into Myanmar, as part of a program backed by the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN to open a humanitarian corridor.
Another potential route to deliver aid to Myanmar is through Bangladesh, which borders its Rakhine state, where the Arakan Army rebel group has taken control of vast territory and beaten back the military.
The fighting in Rakhine has triggered a fresh exodus of the mainly Muslim minority Rohingya community into Bangladesh, which is already hosting over a million Rohingya refugees in sprawling camps.
“I am hoping that my meeting with the chairman will improve channels of communication and will at least show some openings on their side to increase operational space,” she said, referring to Min Aung Hlaing.
