The lack of humanitarian access granted by Myanmar’s government to Rakhine state, where more than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled violence, is ‘unacceptable’, the UN said on Friday.
“The access we have in northern Rakhine state is unacceptable”, the head of the United Nations humanitarian office, Mark lowcock, told reporters in Geneva.
A small UN team visited the crisis-wracked region in majority Buddhist Myanmar in recent days and described witnessing ‘unimaginable’ suffering.
Myanmar has tightly controlled access to the state since last month when attacks by Rohingya militants prompted an army kickback that has sent 515,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.
Scores of Rohingya villages have been torched.
lowcock said he believed a ‘a high level’ UN team would be able to visit the area ‘in the next few days’.
He repeated the UN’s call for the government to allow ‘unhindered (and) unfettered’ access.