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UN pressing for access to Burma displaced: Amos
Agence France Presse - March 23, 2012
Amos said around 55,000 people had been uprooted since clashes erupted in June 2011 between government troops and armed rebels in northern Kachin state, shattering a 17-year ceasefire.
Burma's government had so far only allowed one convoy of UN aid through to displaced people in the conflict zone, in December, she said.
"We've been working very hard to get access. We have not so far been able to do that and we will continue to try," Amos told reporters in Bangkok. "It's really important that we get help to the people who need it," she said.
Amos said the UN would "continue to press for that access. Our humanitarian coordinator has been doing that since last year."
In a report released on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused Burmese troops of committing serious rights abuses against civilians in Kachin.
The New York-based group estimated that at least 75,000 people had fled their homes and were in desperate need of food, medicine and shelter in the mountainous far north of the country.
It said some 45,000 people had fled to rebel-controlled areas near the Chinese border and another 10,000 escaped into China, with most living in improvised camps. Some 20,000 fled to government-controlled areas.
"The UN has to get more vocal about demanding access," HRW deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said.
The new government, which took power last year ending five decades of military rule, has signed peace deals with rebel groups in an effort to end a civil war that has gripped parts of Burma since independence in 1948.
An end to the conflicts and alleged rights abuses by troops is a key demand of Western nations which have imposed sanctions on the regime.
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