Samaw.com

By Bernadette Carroll (BBC News, Chin state, Burma) - In Burma’s north-west Chin state, thousands of people say they are starving. The Mara tribe say hundreds of their community have died in the past two months alone.

Local human rights groups say of an estimated 500,000 population, 100,000 people are at crisis point.

They blame a natural phenomenon, which occurs every 50 years in the region - a plague of rats.

The last time it happened - in the late 1950s - an estimated 15,000 people died from famine.

World Food Programme says no Starvation:

The United Nations World Food Programme has conducted an assessment in the region.

In an email earlier this year to a Burmese non-governmental organisation, the WFP’s country director for Burma, Chris Kaye, concluded that “people are not dying of starvation” and that the “distribution of WFP relief food would be inappropriate”.

Mara people disagree saying WFP’s assessment did not include them:

Mara people say that the WFP’s assessment did not include southern Chin where they live and that if the international community fails to take them into account, their tribe may not survive.

Mizoram Chief Minister Pu Zoramthanga supported the argument by Mara people:

That view is shared by the chief minister of Mizoram state in neighbouring India, Pu Zoramthanga. Mizoram is also affected by the bamboo flowering.

“Those visitors went to the accessible areas. There will be no famine there,” says the minister. “If they had visited the area near the border with Mizoram, certainly people are suffering. They have to go back and see.”

(Mizoram CM Pu Zoramthanga & BBC’s Bernadette Caroll, Source: BBC World News Service at FlickR)

Read the rest of the story at BBC.co.uk website: CLick here

Mawta Famine Relief Committee(MFRC) was set up in response to the food crisis in Southern part of Chin state where the crisis in most effected. Visit MFRC website at www.mawta.org