YANGON
\nThe United Nations launched on Tuesday an appeal for $333 million in emergency funding for 1.6 million people it said were affected after deadly Cyclone Mocha tore through Myanmar.
\nMocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 kilometers per hour to Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh on May 14, collapsing buildings and turning streets into rivers.
\nMyanmar\u2019s junta has given a death toll of 148 people, mostly from the persecuted Rohingya minority in western Rakhine state.
\nThe UN\u2019s humanitarian affairs office said it was seeking $333 million to help provide shelter, medical facilities, food and clean water ahead of the rainy season.
\n\u201cWe are now in a race against time to provide people with safe shelter in all affected communities and prevent the spread of water-borne disease,\u201d Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Ramanathan Balakrishnan said in a statement.
\nMore than $200 million would come from the overall humanitarian aid plan for this year in Myanmar, the statement added, with $122m sought to support new relief efforts for those affected by the cyclone.
\nBalakrishnan later told reporters the United Nations was hoping to receive approval soon to distribute relief to communities in Rakhine.
\nThe state is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, many of whom live in displacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict.
\nA military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017 sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh, with harrowing stories emerging of murder, rape and arson.
\nA junta spokesman did not respond to questions about whether UN agencies would be granted access to displacement camps in Rakhine that house Rohingya.
\nJunta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who was head of the army during the 2017 crackdown, has dismissed the term Rohingya as \u201cimaginary.\u201d
\nIn Bangladesh, officials said that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that now house almost one million Rohingya.
\nThe appeal comes after the UN\u2019s food agency said Monday that lack of funding has forced it to cut food aid for around one million Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh for the second time in three months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YANGON The United Nations launched on Tuesday an appeal for $333 million in emergency funding for 1.6 million people it said were affected after deadly Cyclone Mocha tore through Myanmar. Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 kilometers per hour to Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh on May 14, collapsing buildings and turning streets into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-333051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n