- Saturday, March 01, 2025
The cyclone made landfall between Sittwe in Rakhine state of Myanmar and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where around a million mostly Muslim Rohingyas took shelter after a military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
By: Shubham Ghosh
A humanitarian ground carrying out rescue work in the areas of northwestern Myanmar and its neighbouring Bangladesh where Cyclone Mocha made landfall on Sunday (14) has said that hundreds of people had been killed while some camps housing the Rohingya refugees were destroyed, Al Jazeera reported.
The cyclone, one of the most devastating ever to batter the region, made landfall between Sittwe in Rakhine state of Myanmar and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where around a million mostly Muslim Rohingyas took shelter after a crackdown by Myanmar’s military regime in 2017.
On Monday (15), Myanmar’s military regime announced the conflict-hit Rakhine as a “disaster area” after winds blowing at 250 kilometres per hour destroyed trees, telecommunication towers and roofs of buildings.
Torrential rain, coupled with a strong storm, also led to widespread flooding in the low-lying area and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed massive destruction in and around Sittwe, the Al Jazeera report added.
“Early reports suggest that damage is extensive and needs among already vulnerable communities, particularly displaced people, will be high,” the UN body said on Monday, acknowledging that communications with the area were difficult in the current situation.
Over two million people were living in the path of the cyclone, including hundreds and thousands of Rohingyas who remained in Rakhine after the 2017 crackdown where they lived in unpleasant camps and their movements severely restricted.
According to Al Jazeera, Partners Relief and Development, which works in Rakhine, said Rohingya contacts living near Sittwe informed them their camps had been almost ruined and that other early reports were counting the number of dead in the hundreds.
Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya activist and adviser to the human rights ministry of Myanmar’s National Unity Government, said on Twitter that the number of deaths in Sittwe alone was 400. He also shared video of flattened buildings, but stopped short of elaborating.
The number of death due to #Mocha_cyclone alone in Sittwe is reported more than 400 . The number could higher in overall Rakhine State. pic.twitter.com/ayNjbot81b
— Aung Kyaw Moe (@akmoe2) May 16, 2023
The military-owned Myawaddy Channel on Monday reported that three persons had been killed in the cyclone.
Myanmar descended into chaos after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, leading to mass protests that later turned into an armed rebellion.
