Hungry Myanmar villagers forage for food

AFP :

People in western Myanmar have been driven to scavenging for bamboo shoots, as humanitarian workers warn a wartime blockade and aid cutbacks led by Washington have caused hunger cases to surge.

“Another day has gone, and I have to struggle again for another day,” fruit vendor Kyaw Win Shein told AFP in the town of Mrauk U in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

“It is getting worse day by day,” the 60-year-old, whose business is faltering as prices rise and incomes drop a grim equation driving others to scour the countryside for sustenance.

Rakhine state a riverine slice of coastal Myanmar bordering Bangladesh has witnessed intense suffering in Myanmar’s civil war, triggered by a 2021 coup deposing the democratic government.

As the military fights an ethnic armed group, it has blockaded the territory throttling supplies to its estimated population of 2.5 million.

The impoverished state has long been a focus of international aid organisations, but worldwide cutbacks spearheaded by US President Donald Trump’s “America First” freeze on humanitarian funding have forced them to retreat.

The World Food Programme (WFP) which received nearly half its 2024 donations from the United States warned last week that 57 percent of families in central Rakhine are now unable to meet basic food needs.The figure had risen from just 33 percent in December.