ICRC Ready To Work With ASEAN On Humanitarian Assistance For Myanmar

By V.Sankara KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 (Bernama) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is willing and ready to coordinate closely its activities with the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) in providing humanitarian assistance in Myanmar. ICRC Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Christine Cipolla, said it is indeed very important that humanitarian assistance reach all people and communities in need, in full impartiality and neutrality, including in hard-to-reach areas and areas where ethnic armed organisations were present like in Myanmar. “In particular, should the ASEAN AHA Centre and its partners identify humanitarian needs in areas of armed conflicts or other situations of violence that no organisation is able to reach or address, the ICRC is ready to step in,” she said. She said this to Bernama when responding to the call made by Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah that to double humanitarian aid to Myanmar, it should include not only the involvement of AHA Centre but other international organisations as well. The minister was reported as saying that the international organisations have the experience in rendering humanitarian assistance in war-torn and conflict areas, while the AHA centre’s experience is more to render humanitarian assistance during disasters like flood and earthquake. According to Saifuddin, the involvement of AHA Centre and international organisations guided by the United Nations will ensure humanitarian assistance gets distributed efficiently to the targeted groups. Myanmar is under junta rule, following the Feb 1, 2021 coup that overthrew a democratically-elected government. The junta failed to commit to the 5-Point Consensus, reached between ASEAN leaders and the junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hliang, during the April 2021 ASEAN meeting in Jakarta. The five points are: end the violence; hold constructive talks among all stakeholders; ASEAN provides humanitarian aid to Myanmar; a special ASEAN envoy appointed to conduct talks; and the envoy to be allowed to visit the country. Cipolla who is based in Geneva, Switzerland said as part of COVID-19 response in the Asia Pacific region in 2020, ICRC supported at least 150 hospitals, 630 prisons, numerous detention and isolation facilities and police stations, 47 physical rehabilitation centres and over 34 camps for displaced populations in the region. Commenting on the humanitarian concerns in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, Cipolla who joined the ICRC since 2005 and have worked in various contexts in Asia, Middle East and Africa, said access to healthcare remains a major concern for Afghanistan, adding that after decades of war and many months of economic hardship, thousands of health facilities continue to struggle with limited funding and resources. "The only scalable and sustainable solution to the current crisis is to get Afghanistan’s faltering economy running again. "We need international community to support the running of public services in Afghanistan, like hospitals, water and electricity distribution and education. Afghanistan needs technical support and capacity to rebuild confidence in its banking and financial systems," she added. -- BERNAMA