Myanmar cancels UN visit to Rakhine

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UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations (UN) on Thursday said that a planned visit to Myanmar’s Rakhine state to investigate the mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims has been cancelled by the country’s authorities, BBC has reported.
According to BBC, this would have been the first time UN officials visited the area since violence broke out on August 25.
A UN spokesperson in Yangon said no reason was given for the move, BBC reported.
According to BBC, the UN has been pushing to visit Rakhine to investigate the flight of more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh in a month.
The UN announced on Wednesday that it has drawn up a contingency plan to feed up to 700,000 Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
A senior official from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) had said that they were now prepared to provide massive food and other emergency aid if the influx continues in coming weeks.
“All the UN agencies together have now set a plan for a new influx of 700,000. We can cover if the new influx reaches 700,000,” said the WFP’s deputy chief in Bangladesh, Dipayan Bhattacharyya, on Wednesday.
Bhattacharyya had said the hunger situation in camps has improved as food aid from WFP and other agencies is now reaching the refugees.
He had said the plan also covers some 300,000 Rohingya who were already sheltering in southeast Bangladesh before the latest influx began — meaning it could cater for a million people in total.