Arakan State displacement camps call for boosting healthcare services

By DMG 31 Aug 2022

DMG Newsroom

31 August 2022, Kyauktaw

Healthcare services for internally displaced people (IDPs) at some displacement camps in Arakan State’s Kyauktaw and Ponnagyun townships have gradually weakened, IDPs and camp officials say.

More than 300 IDPs at Taungmin Kalar displacement camp in Kyauktaw Township and about 550 IDPs at a camp in a Ponnagyun Township industrial zone have not received healthcare services for some seven months, according to camp managers.

“Previously, government health workers used to provide healthcare services to IDPs monthly. Now, pregnant women have not received vaccination,” Ma Aye Aye Khin, manager of the Taungmin Kalar displacement camp, told DMG.

Children, the elderly and pregnant women in the IDP camps face financial difficulties and transportation barriers, especially during the rainy season when illnesses tend to spike, she said.

Ma Aye Aye Khin added that such difficulties have been presented to the relevant township health department, but have been dismissed to date.

IDPs at the Ponnagyun Township industrial zone camp have raised fears of a dengue fever outbreak among children and the elderly during the rainy season due to the lack of access to healthcare, camp officials said.

“We are worried about the possibility of a diarrhoea outbreak during the rainy season. IDPs have financial difficulties to see the doctor at clinics in downtown Ponnagyun,” said U Than Htay, the manager of the camp.

The affected IDPs want healthcare workers to come to the displacement camps and provide medical care to them regularly, he added.

“These IDPs lost everything they had. I want free healthcare for those who are hopeless. We want health workers to come to the displacement camps once a month to provide healthcare services to IDPs,” he said.

In the past, the Department of Public Health had provided healthcare services to IDPs at the camps monthly, but healthcare personnel have not visited the displacement camp since January 2021, according to sources on the ground.

DMG’s ongoing attempts to contact officials from the Arakan State Health Department about the need for healthcare in the state’s IDP camps had not borne fruit as of Wednesday.

More than 230,000 people were displaced by the fighting in Arakan State from 2018 to 2020, and while many have returned to their homes following an informal ceasefire reached toward the end of 2020, tens of thousands remain at displacement camps.

There are still about 170 IDP camps across 10 Arakan State townships, with about 60,000 people living in those displacement camps.