Rights groups urge Myanmar-based foreign diplomats to help clear aid blockage

The Myanmar junta is trying to monopolise quake aid by demanding all relief missions obtain official permission before entering quake zones and work only in collaboration with military-authorised teams, rights groups say

A damaged Buddha statue is pictured in Inn Wa on the outskirts of Mandalay following the devastating March 28 earthquake in Myanmar. Picture: AFP

Foreign diplomats in Myanmar have been urged to fan out into quake-hit resistance areas to help open delivery channels for life-saving support into rebel-held areas now choked off by the military.

The appeal from Myanmar rights group Progressive Voice follows a new weekend edict by the military junta that all assistance teams must obtain official permission before entering quake zones.

“The military issued a new policy on Saturday that aid groups or rescue and relief missions coming from outside of impacted areas could only come in with prior permission from the junta,” Khin Ohmar, from Progressive Voice, told The Australian.

The order threatens to completely block access for even local humanitarian groups already struggling to deliver aid to meet the enormous needs of up to nine million people affected by the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated central Myanmar, from the military-controlled capital, Naypyidaw, to resistance-held Sagaing and Shan State, she said.

More than 3500 people have now been declared dead, and another 4809 injured in the initial quake and hundreds of subsequent aftershocks that continued to topple buildings and cause deadly sinkholes and liquefaction across six regions.

In neighbouring Thailand, where a 32-storey building under construction in Bangkok collapsed from the strength of the earthquake some 1000km away, the country’s death toll rose to 24. Seventeen of those died at the construction site while another 77 are feared trapped beneath the rubble.

But in Myanmar, the death toll is expected to climb far higher, with some regions still yet to see aid or rescue workers 10 days after the quake.

“The international community who are present in the country need to show their presence in those areas so that humanitarian workers have a better chance of helping people there,” Ms Khin Ohmar said.

“If foreign diplomats are there it gives us a bit of breathing space to do our work, because when foreigners show up authorities have to behave a little better.”

One rescue team was only able to reach the resistance stronghold of Sagaing because its journey into the restricted area coincided with that of a Malaysian rescue team, though even some international teams were being stopped at checkpoints on their way out of Naypyidaw, she added.

Those that did make it into quake zones such as Mandalay City were now required to work in collaboration with junta-authorised groups.

Ms Khin Ohmar said huge amounts of international aid were going no further than Naypyidaw, notwithstanding efforts by some countries – including Australia – to route assistance around the military.

While Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced an early $2m contribution would be channelled through the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC could operate only in conjunction with the Myanmar Red Cross, which was controlled by the junta and “the one implementing everything under the ICRC arrangement”, she said.

Myanmar had already been devastated by years of civil conflict, sparked by the military’s overthrow of the Aung San Suu Kyi government in February 2021, when the March 28 earthquake ripped through the centre of the country, damaging 5223 buildings, 1824 schools, 4817 pagodas and temples, and hundreds of hospitals, bridges, dams and roads.

Millions of people are still living outside, with little access to food, clean water and emergency medicines.

Compounding those catastrophic conditions, monsoon rains on Saturday and Sunday lashed some of the hardest-hit districts, soaking survivors who huddled in tents to avoid the deluge even as daytime temperatures continued to soar into the high 30s.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, in Mandalay to survey the aid needs on Sunday, said the scale of the damage was “epic” and that “traumatised and fearful” survivors urgently needed food, water, shelter and electricity.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar junta has continued to defy its own ceasefire of last Wednesday with multiple airstrikes on rebel-held areas, including those in Sagaing region nearest to the earthquake’s epicentre.

The UN Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights has announced a probe into those military attacks on opponents, while the Free Myanmar Rangers relief group told Reuters the military had dropped bombs in Karenni and Shan states on Thursday and Friday, killing at least five people.