I grew up believing that everyone was entitled to basic health care services. It was only when I arrived in the Rakhine state’s township of Myebon that I realised how wrong I had been.
A serene township where villagers live on fishing and rice cultivation, Myebon is only accessible by a two-hour boat trip along a network of meadow-fringed rivers from the state capital of Sittwe. The natural beauty of the riverside settlement is however overshadowed by the presence of one of the country’s largest settlements for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)–the Taung Paw camp.
Created after the violent ethnic conflict in 2012, Taung Paw is home to more than 2 900 Rohingya people who sought shelter here after the clash between the Muslim minority and the Buddhist community. They are currently not allowed to leave the now dilapidated site without formal authorisation – a document that is not easy to come by since members of the religious minority are not recognised by the government as Burmese nationals. (Courtesy of news.trust.org)
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