How Myanmar’s junta is suppressing information about a hunger crisis

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Myanmar’s ruling junta has suppressed information about a severe food crisis gripping the country by pressuring researchers not to collect data about hunger and aid workers not to publish it, a Reuters investigation has found.

In conversations over the past two years, junta representatives have warned senior aid workers against releasing data and analysis that indicate millions of people in Myanmar are experiencing serious hunger, according to people familiar with the matter.

In a sign of the sensitivity around this data, the world’s leading hunger watchdog – the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – in recent weeks removed its color-coded assessment of Myanmar from the global map on its website where it displays the levels of hunger afflicting dozens of countries. The reason: fears for the safety of the researchers.

In another move to protect data collectors and analysts from the junta, the IPC never made public three detailed analyses that showed the war-torn Southeast Asian nation, once known as the rice bowl of Asia, was facing one of the worst food crises on the planet.

Reuters spoke to more than 30 aid workers, researchers, diplomatic sources and United Nations officials about hunger in Myanmar. Most declined to speak on the record, saying they feared retribution by the military. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted an elected government in 2021, sparking mass protests that escalated into an armed rebellion on many fronts.

An official at Myanmar's Ministry of Information didn’t respond to questions for this story.

An IPC “Special Brief” on Myanmar, dated Nov. 5 and reviewed by Reuters, said about 14.4 million people, or about a quarter of the population, were experiencing acute food insecurity in September and October this year. Acute food insecurity refers to food deprivation that threatens lives or livelihoods. The report projects that by next summer, 15 million people will face acute levels of food insecurity.

Underlying data from that report appeared on a U.N. website last month, but was later removed because of security concerns. A web page now says: “PAGE NOT FOUND.”

The aid workers interviewed by Reuters described a harrowing environment in which most data must be collected clandestinely and aid agencies are afraid to publish their findings on malnutrition and food insecurity – or even share them with one another.

The fear is justified: Last year, Myanmar’s military detained multiple food-security researchers, according to people familiar with the matter. The detentions haven’t been publicized. Reuters was unable to determine what happened to the researchers.

The secrecy surrounding hunger research in Myanmar has hindered relief organisations’ efforts to raise money for humanitarian aid because they can’t use their findings to spotlight the severity of the problem, according to a diplomatic source. The U.N.’s humanitarian response in Myanmar is one of the world’s most severely underfunded. The U.N. has sought nearly $1 billion from donors for Myanmar aid this year but has received just 34% of the goal.

“I’ve not worked in many contexts like Myanmar where it’s been so scrutinized that people have a fear of talking about an issue like food security and nutrition,” the diplomatic source said.

Reuters also uncovered at least four examples of how the junta blocked aid distribution or seized food supplies intended for the hungry. One such spot is the western state of Rakhine, where there has been a surge in violence in the past year following the collapse of a ceasefire between a powerful rebel group called the Arakan Army and the military. In Rakhine, home to the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, the military in recent months has prevented the delivery of food and medicine to severely malnourished children in an area gripped by cholera, according to aid workers.

Hunger in Rakhine is so severe it is partly responsible for an exodus of 70,000 refugees this year to Bangladesh, almost 50% more than previously reported. In November, the United Nations Development Program warned that Rakhine is on the brink of an “acute famine,” putting more than two million people at risk of starvation.

Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s special envoy for human rights in Myanmar, told Reuters that the junta is “systematically restricting” humanitarian aid access, contributing to the spread of cholera and other infectious diseases. He said he has received reports that many of the hundreds of thousands of needy people cut off from international assistance “are on the brink of starvation.”

The junta’s rule has had a “catastrophic impact on agriculture and food supply,” a spokesperson for the British embassy in Yangon said. “People are going hungry daily, children are malnourished, and millions are being plunged into poverty.”

The situation in Myanmar highlights how the global system for tackling hunger and preventing famine – comprising U.N. agencies, non-governmental humanitarian groups and donor countries – is under enormous strain. Last year, almost 282 million people in 59 countries and territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity. Reuters is documenting the global hunger-relief crisis in a series of reports, including from Sudan and Afghanistan.

One of the chief obstacles to alleviating hunger is national governments that thwart aid efforts, including the collection of nutrition data, whether to avoid the embarrassment of needing outside help or to prevent food from reaching enemy-held territory. Besides Myanmar, Reuters found that in three other countries now suffering food crises – Ethiopia, Yemen and Sudan – governments or rebels have blocked or falsified the flow of data to the IPC, or have tried to suppress IPC findings.

In private discussions with U.N. officials, junta representatives have criticized data published on Myanmar’s hunger crisis and have said they don’t want the country to be considered a failed state or compared to conflict-torn places like Ukraine and Gaza. At one session in the capital, Myanmar’s foreign minister addressed food security with U.N. officials over plates of snacks. There is no food security crisis, the minister said, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The junta’s foreign ministry and information ministry didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. The junta has said it doesn’t block humanitarian aid from international organizations and that it ensures available assistance reaches those in need.

It was hunger, not just the fighting, that pushed heavily-pregnant Juhara Begum to risk a perilous journey out of Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The 25-year-old said her family had to survive on leaves and other vegetation. There was nothing to eat, so when her older son, a toddler, cried they gave him a piece of banana stem to suck on to relieve the hunger.

“It felt like hell,” she said, speaking at a refugee camp in southern Bangladesh near the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar. She arrived there last month after a days-long walk.

Other recent arrivals include 23-year-old Kasmida Begum, her husband Sulaiman and their two young children. She said there was so little to eat that she was unable to breastfeed their baby. “Where will milk be produced from, if I am hungry all the time?” she asked.

CLIMATE OF FEAR

Myanmar’s military ruled the country for decades until democratic reforms paved the way for the election of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2015. Her administration and aid organizations worked to improve nutrition across a vast and impoverished nation. Those gains have been reversed dramatically since 2021, when army chief Min Aung Hlaing overthrew Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government and appointed himself prime minister. Suu Kyi’s son said she is being held in solitary confinement in a prison in the capital, Naypyitaw.

After crushing mass protests triggered by the coup, the junta faced a nationwide uprising. New armed groups joined long-established ethnic armies to seize vast swathes of territory. The junta continues to lose ground rapidly. Its troops have killed thousands of civilians and jailed tens of thousands in prisons where torture is pervasive, according to the U.N.’s human rights office. The U.N. says 3.4 million people have been internally displaced since the 2021 coup – a major driver of the hunger crisis, which has also been exacerbated by flooding and other extreme weather.

The junta has passed a law requiring all non-governmental organizations to register with authorities or risk jail. They are required to seek permission to carry out research, but authorization is rarely granted, especially on food and nutrition-related topics, according to aid workers.

In interviews, several aid workers expressed fear they or staff from partner organizations would be arrested or have their operations shut down if they conducted their work openly. To minimize risk, the identities of some researchers who collect food and hunger data are kept secret even from one another, aid workers said.

Despite the intimidation, some headline data on Myanmar’s food crisis has been published. In recent days, both the World Bank and the U.N. have released reports showing that hunger there is significantly worsening for millions of people.

Like other aid groups, the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) delivers reports to local authorities, donors and partner organizations on its operations in the countries where it works. To protect its staff and local partners, the WFP, the U.N.’s main food-aid distributor, hasn’t published its situational reports for Myanmar since June 2023. The reports provide the latest updates on the WFP’s activities and responses to emergencies. The WFP also hasn’t released its Annual Country Report for Myanmar since 2022.

Collecting data is challenging. The conflict and mass displacement have made it dangerous and impractical to conduct in-person nutrition surveys, researchers said. Gauging malnutrition of children, for instance, often requires researchers to visit homes and clinics and measure upper-arm circumferences.

The military has also blocked attempts to conduct a nationwide nutrition study, saying it couldn’t ensure the safety of the survey staff, one U.N. official said. The last such study was conducted in 2015 and 2016 – making the data nearly a decade old.

Some aid organizations have found ways to produce limited surveys. Reuters learned of two studies conducted in recent months that found high levels of child stunting and wasting, the most severe and life-threatening form of malnutrition.

One focused on children in Rakhine state. It found that the majority of children surveyed were reported to be sick and many were malnourished. The other survey found stunting was evident in 65% of children surveyed in parts of Myanmar’s southeast, where hundreds of thousands have been displaced by recent fighting.

The studies haven’t been published for fear of retribution by the military, people familiar with them said.

NO RICE

The junta has blocked the supply of rice and other food, medicine and essentials into parts of Rakhine and other war zones, multiple aid workers told Reuters. During an outbreak of cholera in recent months, the military also blocked sanitation work in squalid camps in Rakhine where Rohingya are confined. And the junta has severely restricted phone and internet access to vast areas, including the most of Rakhine state.

The fighting between the military and rebel forces has damaged the facilities of humanitarian relief organizations, harming their ability to distribute aid.

The U.N. human rights office last year publicly accused Myanmar’s military rulers of burning food stores and restricting aid access. The office said aid providers were consistently exposed to risk of arrest and harassment by the junta.

In June of this year, clashes escalated in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army rebel group. Late that month, a WFP warehouse there with enough food and supplies to sustain 64,000 people for a month was set alight, according to the food-aid distributor. Video footage released by the Arakan Army shows flames and smoke billowing out of two buildings as people walk away with stuffed white sacks.

The Arakan Army accused the military of burning the warehouse; the junta blamed the rebels and said the military had rescued the food and distributed it to the local population. The WFP didn’t assign blame for the arson attack.

The junta and the Arakan Army didn’t respond to questions about the fire at the warehouse or what happened to its contents.

Over the past year, as fighting has intensified across the country, skyrocketing food prices have rendered staples unaffordable to many. The junta’s economic policies, including import restrictions, have contributed to inflation, researchers said.

Some of the most dire food insecurity in the country is among displaced people in Rakhine state, according to the IPC’s unreleased November report.

Food prices in Rakhine have risen 154% in the last year as of October, with the cost of vegetables having more than quadrupled, according to a U.N. unit that compiles Myanmar data. The price of rice, a national staple, has also soared. In one Rakhine township it was more than 10 times more expensive in July than at the start of 2021, according to the United Nations Development Program.

Five refugees who recently fled Rakhine described sharp increases in food prices. Some said they were unable to afford even an onion.

About 70,000 people from Rakhine state have crossed into Bangladesh this year, according to a Bangladesh official. That is nearly 50% higher than the 46,000 new refugees from Myanmar the U.N. said it recorded in Bangladesh this year through September. Many are victims of “hunger-induced displacement,” the Bangladesh official said.

Dark scars and small bulbous blisters cover the feet of Juhara Begum and her husband Rahimullah – reminders of their dangerous journey out of Rakhine. They were among several refugees who said they starved after the Arakan Army looted supplies and expelled them from their homes near the town of Buthidaung, Myanmar’s largest Rohingya settlement, which the rebel group attacked in May.

“No markets were open. There was no healthcare, no help from anyone. We never received any aid,” said Rahimullah. The couple now live in a bamboo-and-plastic shack in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, surrounded by more than a million other Rohingya. Many were expelled in a military-led ethnic cleansing campaign in 2017.

His family would have been killed or “starved to death” if they had stayed, said Rahimullah.

Arakan Army spokesman Khine Thu Kha told Reuters there was no looting in areas under the militia's control. He has previously denied that the Arakan Army targeted the Rohingya.

Mohammad Munna, 42, said his family had to forage for sustenance in Rakhine after being driven from their home. They survived on bamboo shoots, tapioca leaves and fruit. His children cried themselves to sleep from hunger, he said.

A neighbor’s children, aged two and four, died after suffering from diarrhea in their burned-down house, according to Munna. Healthcare and medicine were “non-existent,” he said.

A day later their mother, suffering from fever, died as well.

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