Thousands of people displaced by conflict in Rakhine State are facing shortages of food, masks and hand sanitiser at a camp in Mrauk-U that went into lockdown on Wednesday after a woman living there tested positive for Covid-19.
The Sin Baw Kaing camp is the biggest of the 12 in Mrauk-U, housing 3,901 people from 775 families, said Ohnmar Nwe, the camp officer.
“We put the camp under lockdown last night after finding out that a lady tested positive. We still don’t know how long the lockdown will last,” she said.
The woman, who is 40, tested positive during a visit to Mrauk-U hospital after coming down with a fever. “We are now planning to send the patient’s family to Mrauk-U hospital,” Ohnmar Nwe said.
It is the first time the Sin Baw Kaing camp has been locked down since the start of the pandemic. There are also travel restrictions in place in the surrounding villages, which is making it difficult to get food.
“Now that both the camp and the nearby villages are in lockdown, it’s become really hard to get supplies. It’s really worrying at this point,” said Ohnmar Nwe.
“It’s going to get quite challenging to get food supplies,” added Nanda Sara, who is the head monk from the local Mya Tazaung monastery and is helping provide aid at the camp.
The International Committee of the Red Cross usually provides 50% of the camp’s food needs with donations of rice, oil, vegetables and chillies, he said. “As for meat and fish, they have to look for it themselves.”
Ohnmar Nwe said that although the camp already has hand-washing sinks, it is still short of other supplies needed to curb the virus.
“We don’t have any masks or hand sanitiser anymore,” she said. “The ones donated last year have run out and no one else is donating.”
Although fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army stopped in November last year, many displaced by the violence remain in camps, either because their houses were destroyed, soldiers are still stationed at their villages, or there are mines or other explosives left over from the fighting.
The risk of infection is high in the densely populated camps. Rakhine was one of the worst affected regions in the country when a second wave of Covid-19 hit last year.
Border gates with Bangladesh were closed in the state on Thursday until the end of the month, while schools shut for two weeks from July 9.
Officially, there were 822 cases and 22 deaths in Rakhine between May 25 and July 14. But social welfare groups in other parts of the country have accused the junta of drastically underreporting deaths.
In early July around 150 border police and their family members in Maungdaw and Buthidaung tested positive for the virus.
