Under a mosquito net, in a Burmese monastery, a baby sleeps peacefully, indifferent to the hundreds of people who, on Saturday, line up to get a little food, waiting for a decline to return home.
Monsoon-triggered floods and landslides in Burma have killed five people and forced around 48,000 people to flee their homes, according to the ministry in charge of disaster management.
In the city of Bago, northeast of the capital Yangon, children float on rubber tires, shouting for joy. For their part, the adults paddle in wooden canoes filled with provisions to reach the shelters in the middle of murky and brownish water.
Volunteers distribute meals, consisting of rice and curried eggs in a monastery, to the hundreds of families waiting there, seated on mats laid out on the ground, in a large room open to the outside.
Parents and children are cramped, huddled amid bags that contain their meager possessions – clothes hanging from makeshift clotheslines.
Even in the cramped conditions, flood victims are happy to be safe and dry, said one, Tin Win, 52.
“If it stops raining, we hope to return home in three days,” she told AFP.
Across the city, dogs scrambled into Buddhist temples or steps to escape floodwaters in the pouring rain.
According to Burma’s meteorological office, the Bago River has risen about 30cm and should begin to decline in the coming days.
Burma is hit with heavy rain every year around this time, but extreme weather events have been occurring around the world in recent weeks, made worse by climate change, scientists say.
The floods began in late July and affected nine states and regions from north to south of the country.
Ohm Kyi, 64, recounts the difficulties she faced escaping the deluge.
“We hired a boat to carry some things from home, but the boat couldn’t come near. So we had to walk in the water and carry whatever we could,” she told the newspaper. AFP.
“We only took a few clothes, pots and plates.”
Five people have died across the country in recent days, Lay Shwe Zin Oo, a senior official at the relief ministry, told AFP.
“We have provided basic food, including instant noodles and drinking water,” she said, adding that the displaced people are staying in monasteries, schools and higher places.
In flood-hit Karen State, Myanmar Red Cross volunteers continue to evacuate families, distribute food and provide care, the organization said on X (formerly Twitter).
In addition to the bad weather, Burma is in the throes of a bloody civil conflict between the junta, which took power in a coup in February 2021, and armed groups opposed to its regime.
The country has been the scene of a violent civil conflict, which has killed more than 3,000 people and caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, since the putsch of February 1, 2021 which overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The United Nations strongly criticized the junta for its handling of the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, which killed at least 148 people and destroyed many homes. She had refused to allow international aid to be channeled to the affected region.
08/13/2023 11:03:29 – Bago (Burmanie) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
