Famine Looms in Myanmar’s Rakhine State: UN File Photo: Htukkant Thein temple in Mrauk U, Rakhine State. Photo Credit: AFP

By Diplomatic Correspondent

Myanmar’s conflict-torn Rakhine State is heading toward famine as civil war squeezes commerce and agricultural production, the United Nations warned on November 7, AFP reported.

“Rakhine’s economy has stopped functioning,” a new report from the UN Development Program said, projecting “famine conditions by mid-2025” if current levels of food insecurity are left unaddressed. Some 2 million people are at risk of starvation, it said.

Amid the fighting roiling the country, international and domestic trade routes leading into already impoverished Rakhine State have been closed, leaving the entrance of aid and goods severely restricted.

In addition to intense fighting, people in the state face “absence of incomes, hyperinflation (and) significantly reduced domestic food production,” the UNDP report warned.

Myanmar has been racked by conflict between the military and various armed groups opposed to its rule since the junta ousted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

Clashes have rocked western Rakhine since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November 2023, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the coup.

With the farming economy in crisis, the UNDP predicted local food production would only cover 20 percent of the state’s needs by March or April.

Internal rice production is “plummeting,” it said, due to “a lack of seeds, fertilizers (and) severe weather conditions.”

Only 97,000 tons of rice are set to be cultivated in Rakhine this year, compared to 282,000 tons last year, according to the UNDP.

A “steep rise” in internally displaced people, meanwhile, means many fields cannot be worked.

According to UN figures, Rakhine state recorded more than 500,000 displaced people in August, compared to just under 200,000 in October 2023.

Facing particular risk are the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority and displaced people.