The emergency worsens the dire situation in vast areas of Myanmar, more than three years after a military coup that has led to escalating fighting, increased displacement and extreme threats to protection. In the worst-affected areas, Urgent needs include basic food, clean water and sanitation.
He World Food Programme (WFP) reported that initial reports indicate that hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland have been flooded in Ayeyarwady, and that some 500,000 people could be affected in this key rice-growing region.
WFP initially plans to assist some 35,000 people sheltering in evacuation centres in Ayeyarwady. The food packages include rice and fortified biscuits, along with nutritional support for mothers and children to prevent acute malnutrition.
Food security in danger
Sheela Matthew, the agency’s representative in Myanmar, warned that the floods “threaten to significantly reduce monsoon rice yields” and will likely “jeopardize the food security of small farmers.”
He added that the effects of rising waters “will probably be felt Not only in Ayeyarwady, but throughout Myanmar”, hence the WFP response “to help mitigate potential food shortages”.
Even before the floods, 1.5 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance in Ayeyarwady – or one in four people – according to Myanmar’s Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2024.
The UN Humanitarian Aid Office (OCHA) which issued the country’s grim assessment last December, said more than 18.6 million people were estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance.Children are bearing the brunt of the crisis, with six million children in need as a result of displacement, disruption of health care and education, food insecurity and malnutrition, and protection risks, including forced recruitment and mental unrest.”
A rare intervention
The WFP’s relief operation marks its first intervention in the delta in nine years; the agency last provided assistance in 2015 following widespread flooding.
It has also supported assistance so far to 130,000 people in flood-affected communities across Myanmar in Bago, Kachin, Kayin, Magway, Mandalay and Sagaing. “WFP is assessing the needs in Rakhine and is prepared to respond,” it said in a press release.
The UN agency’s response to the floods includes areas that have been affected by the conflict, except Ayeyarwady and parts of Bago, which are among the few regions in Myanmar where there is no fighting.
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