Amid international condemnation of Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims, the Rakhine state government has announced it provides food for “local ethnic nationals and Muslim villagers” in Buthidaung Township of Maungdaw district.
The announcement came as an exodus that saw more than 410,000 Rohingya flee to Bangladesh since August 25 to escape a Myanmar military counter-insurgency offensive that the United Nations has called "ethnic cleansing."
“Today [Sunday], our department [Rakhine State Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Department], together with state government, is providing rice donated by some foreign countries and cooking oil, salt, and peas from the department to villages where local ethnic nationals were facing difficulties due to the 'ARSA extremist terrorists' and to Muslim villagers who do not accept terrorist acts and want to live peacefully. Our department had provided food aid to all marshalling areas and is continuing by providing to villages,” reads a statement issued by U Kyaw Min, director of the department.
“Next day, we will continue to provide food aid to Muslim villages,” the statement further reads.
The attacks on police outposts by members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), since proscribed a terror group by the government, sparked a fresh round of violent “clearance operations” by Myanmar security forces.
Kyaw Min said the government has helped evacuate more than 11,000 non-Muslim Rakhine residents since August 25 to other parts of the state.
Almost 40 times that number of Rohingya have been forced to flee in the opposite direction, to neighbouring Bangladesh, where aid agencies are struggling to cope.