The dead are mainly members of the Muslim Rohingya minority, which has been persecuted in Myanmar – which is primarily Buddhist – for decades. The “National Unity Government” is a kind of democratic shadow government that was formed after the 2021 military coup as an alternative to the ruling junta. She had tried in advance to warn people about the cyclone and to organize international help for the victims.
The tropical cyclone made landfall in Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh on Sunday with wind speeds of more than 250 km/h. The full extent of the damage is only slowly becoming clear. “Some towns look like lakes, some villages are empty of houses,” said Min Thein, a resident of Rakhine.
Myanmar: Dozens feared dead after ‘Mocha’
Category five cyclone Mocha may have claimed many more lives in Myanmar than previously thought. Eyewitnesses and NGOs in the particularly hard-hit state of Rakhine on the west coast reported at least 30 deaths. Many people are also still listed as missing.
million internally displaced persons
The news site The Irrawaddy also reported at least 400 dead in Rohingya camps around the city of Sittwe. Many drowned or were killed by falling trees. The crisis-ridden country of Myanmar has been engulfed in chaos and violence since a military coup two years ago.
The ruling junta suppresses all resistance with an iron fist and repeatedly launches airstrikes on its own people. More than a million people are already living as displaced people in their own country, often in makeshift camps. In Myanmar and Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands were taken to safety as a precaution before the storm. In Bangladesh, this apparently saved many lives: According to the authorities, no deaths have been reported so far.
UN sees “nightmare scenario”
According to estimates by UN aid workers, the cyclone passed through areas with a population of 4.5 million in Myanmar. Of these, 3.1 million are considered particularly at risk because they had inadequate shelter, food and income before the hurricane hit. The UN aid coordinator in Myanmar, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, spoke of a “nightmare scenario”.
According to Balakrishnan, “Mocha” hit the poorest parts of the country, which had previously been affected by the CoV pandemic, internal conflict and economic problems. “Now they are also on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” he said, referring to the increasingly frequent extreme weather events that are being observed as part of global warming.
The aid organization Oxfam had previously said the storm was having a “huge impact” on the lives of the internally displaced. “We call on the international community to provide the resources needed to enable them to live in dignity.”
World’s largest refugee camp also affected
The city of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh was also affected. Around one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live in the world’s largest collection of refugee camps, mostly in dwellings made of bamboo and plastic sheeting. About 2,500 of these accommodations were completely or partially destroyed, the authorities said.
Many in the region had feared that “Mocha” could have effects as terrible as Cyclone “Nargis” 15 years ago: In May 2008, the tropical storm in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta killed almost 140,000 people, according to estimates.
