
UNITED NATIONS - The top UN humanitarian
office has called for attention to the plight of internally displaced persons
(IDPs) in Myanmar's northeastern states of Kachin and Shan, a UN spokesperson
told reporters here on Monday.
Citing the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman
of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that 107,000 people remain
displaced in Kachin and Shan as a result of the conflict between government
forces and the Kachin Independence Army which restarted in 2011.
Haq added that the United Nations'
access into Kachin is still limited and the situations of IDPs in Kachin and
Shan were recently eclipsed by sufferings of Rohingya refugees from western
state of Rakhine.
According to figures from the UN Refugee
Agency (UNHCR), more than 900,000 Rohingya have fled violence in northern
Rakhine to neighboring Bangladesh and more than 100,000 additional Rohingya
fled to elsewhere in Southeast Asia since August 2017 when the Arakan Rohingya
Salvation Army extremists launched attacks on police outposts in Rakhine.
Last week, the Chinese embassy in
Myanmar provided humanitarian assistance, including commodities and medicines,
to displaced persons in Kachin state. Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang pledged to
continue supporting the development of social welfare, economy, education and
health for the people in Kachin state.