Yesterday morning Cyclone Mocha made landfall on the northern coast of Burma.
Carrying a wall of water up to 11 foot high from the sea, and with wind speeds up to 130 miles per hour, the cyclone has caused flooding and devastation across large parts of Northern Burma, including Rakhine, Chin and Kachin States and Sagaing Region.
Low lying areas of Rakhine State, including the capital Sittwe, have suffered severe floods. This is an area where there are camps for Rohingya who were forced to flee attacks in 2012.
Chin State and Sagaing Region are areas where there have been intense attacks by the Burmese military since the attempted coup 2 years ago, and there are more than 750,000 people in temporary shelters after fleeing their homes.
Fortunately, the worst of the cyclone avoided the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, where 1 million Rohingya refugees live in squalid temporary shelters in the world’s largest refugee camp.
Even in normal times the impact of this cyclone would be devastating, but this cyclone comes at a time when so many people are already homeless and when there is already so much increased poverty because of the violence by the Burmese military.
News about the impact is slowly coming in but the storm caused widespread disruption to communication systems, so it is difficult to get up to date information. But we can’t wait until after we have more details of just how bad the situation is. People need immediate support and right now we have no funds we can use to help them. We need donations now so that when we receive requests for support we can respond immediately.
Our sister charity Advance Myanmar is a UK registered charity which is standing by to provide local community organisations on the ground the money they need to provide direct assistance for those impacted by the cyclone.
The cyclone has passed over parts of Burma which have been freed from control of the military and where UN and other agencies don’t have direct access. Support to local community organisations will be the only way to help people in these areas. Advance Myanmar will provide that support, making sure your donation quickly reaches those in need.
Please make a donation today so we can respond to requests for support.
Anna Roberts
Executive Director, Burma Campaign UK
PS: In the past we have been able to respond to requests for urgent assistance, making sure money reaches people in need within hours. But we can only do this if we receive donations. Without your support we can’t respond to requests for assistance.
