Brussels – The EU has launched a humanitarian airlift operation to convey 80 tons of emergency supplies to Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city and the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated the country on March 28. The first flight – with tents, health, water, and sanitation kits – will leave Copenhagen today for Yangon, where it will be delivered to UNICEF. Following reports of the shooting of the Chinese Red Cross by the Burmese army, the European Commission stresses the importance of ensuring access on the ground for humanitarian organizations and making sure they operate in a safe environment.
The earthquake toll is worsening by the hour. There are already over 2,700 confirmed casualties, but the USGS agency forecasts it could reach 10,000. The earthquake-affected areas are home to about half of the 3.5 million internally displaced people in Myanmar, a country torn by four years of violent civil war that, among other things, caused a severe food crisis and put the country’s economy in enormous difficulty. According to the UN Humanitarian Affairs coordinator for Myanmar, Marcoluigi Corsi, there are nearly 20 million people “in need of humanitarian assistance” in the Southeast Asian country. And this, “even before the earthquake.”
In this context, aid must be distributed to the people. This morning, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the armed groups fighting against the ruling military junta since the 2021 coup, denounced the attack by the government army on a convoy of vehicles carrying humanitarian aid from the Chinese Red Cross. The attack reportedly took place last night even though the military junta knew the convoy’s movements. The TNLA militia is part of the Three Brotherhoods Alliance, with the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). The Three Brotherhoods proposed a ceasefire after the earthquake, but junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing said military operations would continue as “necessary protective measures.”
There are mounting calls to set hostilities aside from the UN to the European Union. “We urge all parties to the conflict in Myanmar to immediately cease fire,” said EU Crisis Management Commissioner Hadja Lahbib. In the hours immediately following the earthquake, Brussels activated the Copernicus satellite service. It also allocated 2.5 million in humanitarian aid, and the European Commission announced it would add another 500,000 euros to contribute to the emergency appeal issued by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
In addition, following the activation of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a team of 12 European experts from Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Norway will fly to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur in the coming days to coordinate the emergency response with partners on the ground.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
