#sittwe

Photo: A Rohingya woman with a young child walks through a destroyed community near Sittwe, Myanmar. 

Hasun is Rohingya and father to 3 children: A 10 year-old, 7 year-old, and 3 year-old.

He shared that his community near Sittwe, Myanmar received information about the cyclone and flooding. The village administrator suggested evacuating to a safer place but didn't say where to go. Some people moved to other villages where they have relatives. Hasun said they didn’t have any relatives to go to. He and his wife didn’t know where to go with their three children, so they decided to stay home. On Sunday the 14th, around 12 pm, the wind started, and it became stronger and stronger. He was aware that the storm was very powerful and realized that he couldn't stay home anymore. There had been some cyclones before, but this time it was so strong.

Suddenly, more water came in quickly with high speeds and washed out his wife and mother-in-law.

He is not sure what time his family decided to leave the house. It was flooding outside; they were trying to get out of the village. Suddenly, more water came in quickly with high speeds and washed out his wife and mother-in-law. The water reached up to his neck. He managed to escape with his three children, but he couldn't save his wife and her mother. His wife's dead body was found hooked on the barbed wire fence. She was thirty years old.

He said some people wouldn’t have died if there was no barbed wire fence. Because of the fence, they had to choose a different route to escape, which took more time, and resulted in many lost lives. Some people tried to break the brick wall on the other side of the airport, later some police helped them break it, and they were able to escape from the flood.

His children are living with a family in another village, and the youngest child is always crying for their mother. Now, he is living in his village beside the road. Almost every house was destroyed in Sittwe, so it is hard for people to host another family. Now, the most important thing that they need is rice, food, and shelter.

The stories from our Rohingya friends whose entire communities were destroyed by Cyclone Mocha are heartbreaking to hear. The crisis caused by this natural disaster was gravely compounded by the dire conditions that Rohingya families endure under the Myanmar government.

We are called to bear witness to our friends' experiences as we stand in solidarity with them. 

Please join us as our team rapidly responds to the urgent relief requests from Rohingya communities in the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha.

Photo: Rohingya community members survey the devastation to their community by Cyclone Mocha. 

Rawfiq lives in a village near Sittwe, Myanmar with his wife and two daughters. As Cyclone Mocha approached the mainland, the village administrator announced in the village that the cyclone was going to hit Sittwe at 100 and 110 mph. He told people to evacuate to a safe place, but there was no information about where they could go. The administrator told Rawfiq’s community to go to other villages where they have relatives.

Rawfiq said, "We don't know where to go."

Photo: Rawfiq, a Rohingya father, near Sittwe, Myanmar.

He told us that there were no arrangements for them to go to another place. He sent his thirteen and fifteen-year-old daughters to one of his relatives' houses. 

“My wife and I stayed home because I thought it would be harder for my relatives to host another family in their house”, Rawfiq added. “People didn’t know where to go; where and how they could get food, or how they would cook. These questions prevented people from being evacuated.

Mostly, children and women moved to other villages where they have their relatives. Some families who don't have any relatives had no choice but to stay.

On Sunday, in the morning, my wife moved to the neighbor's house because their house was stronger than our house. I was alone at home" Rawfiq said "When the storm began, and the wind howled, I realized that the cyclone was more powerful than I thought.”

Rawfiq decided to leave the house but at that moment, the roof of his house was blown away. 

I heard that my wife was also washed away by the flood when she was trying to escape. I thought she had died.

“Suddenly, the flood came into the village very quickly. Luckily, I swam and managed to get to the land, but all of my clothes were washed away by the water. I was naked and walking in the storm. I was able to get to the neighboring village where people gave me clothes. Some people were washed out by the flood. I heard that my wife was also washed away by the flood when she was trying to escape. I thought she had died but after a day and a half, I heard the news that my wife was saved by some people in another village. We didn't get information that the flood would be that dangerous, we didn't think that the storm was so powerful,” Rawfiq explained.

“Now, I am living beside the road. I can't go back home. My house was totally destroyed and I cannot even go there because of the mud. We have difficulty with drinking water. We have to travel too far to get drinking water, all the water wells and hand pumps are damaged and the water is salty now.

Now, I am living beside the road. I can't go back home. My house was totally destroyed and I cannot even go there because of the mud. 

We need clothes. We lost all of our clothes and are now wearing what other people share. And we need food, now people are sharing food that they have but it is not enough. Also, it is hard to cook, here it is hard to make a fire to cook. In my village, a total of 18 people died and lots of people got injured, mostly by stepping on nails.”

Rawfiq and his family are one of thousands of Rohingya families whose homes have been destroyed and lives have been devastated by Cyclone Mocha. Our team is scaling up their provisions of shelter and food in the Sittwe area as they are able, but we are limited in what we can do without your support.

Please donate today so our team can respond to the urgent requests for relief that are being shared with them by our Rohingya friends. Thank you for showing up over and over again with unwavering solidarity for Rohingya kids & their families.

As a tumultuous summer bleeds into fall, our world and our futures remain uncertain while we live through a pandemic that has swept up hundreds of  thousands of lives and many of the hopes and dreams we had for 2020. We wait with baited breath for a vaccine or some cure to quell our anxieties. As students return to school and workers return to their jobs, the virus remains an omnipresent threat to our lives, our families, and our communities.

In Sittwe, Myanmar, the COVID-19 outbreak is rapidly escalating. Sittwe is the nearest city to where over 100,000 Rohingya live in internment camps and surrounding villages. The first cases in the area were identified mid-August, and since then the numbers have risen, with 100 new cases reported on August 26th alone.

This is deeply concerning as access to medical care has been routinely denied to Rohingya in Rakhine State. Of the 100 new cases in Myanmar on Wednesday, 99 were transmitted within the community. All cases were connected to the Sittwe township. 

On August 28th our team began supporting Rohingya and Rakhine communities at risk of COVID-19 near Sittwe, Myanmar. Distributions included 100 full PPE suits and 3,000 surgical masks delivered to Sittwe Hospital to support health workers and patients.

Bangladesh, home to over 700,000 Rohingya refugees, has one of the lowest ratios of hospital beds to patients in the world. There has been a shortage of ICU beds during the coronavirus outbreak - figures vary, but it is estimated that there are just over 1,000 beds for a population of more than 160 million.

The coronavirus has forced a growing sense of urgency around the issue among international aid responders. Since the pandemic began in March, household purchasing power has shrunk: daily wage earners can only afford to buy about four kilograms of rice – a quarter of what most households could afford in February, according to UN agencies. Both the Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps as well as their host communities are suffering significantly from this virus.

Partners equips Community Health Workers (CHWs) in the camps with medicine and infant malnutrition packs to provide healthcare for Rohingya refugees who rarely have access to outside medical care. We are also distributing urgent food relief in the camps as food access has stalled due to the pandemic.

In Syria, nine years of fighting have left the country in an extremely poor position to confront the pandemic. Critical infrastructure such as energy, water, sanitation and healthcare facilities have been repeatedly targeted throughout the war and are largely crippled or destroyed. Healthcare facilities have been attacked more than 600 times in the course of the Syrian Civil War. According to the UN, at the outbreak of the pandemic, only 57 hospitals and clinics were fully operational in Syria for a population of around 16 million. 

Social distancing is not possible for most Syrians living in crowded apartments or refugee settlements. Furthermore, important protective gear has been in short supply and subject to rampant price gouging and profiteering. 

Our team is providing food assistance in Northeast Syria and have repurposed a school into a quarantine center in Daraa Governorate, Syria.

In the first half of 2020, we’ve helped more than 142,000 people as part of our COVID-19 response plan. 

Rice distribution in Sittwe, June 2020

As the threat of COVID-19 still looms overhead, around 40,000 villagers in Rakhine State (including about 5,000 Rohingya) are being forced from their homes as a result of new fighting between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar Military.

These attacks fly in the face of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) January ruling that Myanmar take “all measures within its power” to prevent a Rohingya genocide. 

On June 24th, 39 Rakhine and Rohingya villages were warned that “clearance operations” were underway, so they fled to the Sittwe area seeking safety. “Clearance operations” is the same language used by the Myanmar government in 2017, when 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh by the Myanmar Military and their proxies.

These attacks also defy UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ call to stop conflict as countries fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 is already a devastating threat for displaced and marginalized communities in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Forcing residents from their homes during a global pandemic is inhumane.

Already we are helping in the area and in the past week our Rohingya team has distributed more than 100,000 kilograms of rice to existing Rohingya families in the camps and surrounding villages near Sittwe. During economic downturn, global pandemic, and displacement during the rainy season, rice is a lifeline. Rice is hope. 

One of our Rohingya team shared their feelings about this most recent displacement:

“I really feel sorry for them [the Rakhine people]. They have it worse than we do.”

This is saying a lot, given that their particular Rohingya communities have been living in internment camps since 2012, and have regularly been subjected to food shortages, restrictions of movement, and other human rights violations.

Our constant prayer is for the protection of the Rohingya and Rakhine. Our relentless effort is to support and uplift the communities displaced by these atrocious attacks. 

We often find ourselves speaking on behalf of our Rohingya friends who continue to face great hardships, so today, we wanted you to hear directly from them how your love is making a difference in their lives.