SITTWE: The death toll from Cyclone Mocha has reached 145 in Myanmar with the majority Rohingya refugees, authorities said Friday (May 19), after the region’s most powerful storm in more than a decade hit at the weekend.
A girl draws water from a pump at Basara refugee camp in Sittwe on Tuesday (May 16), after cyclone Mocha made a landfall. Photo: AFP
Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 kilometres per hour to Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh on Sunday (May 14), collapsing buildings and turning streets into rivers.
The storm churned up villages, uprooted trees and knocked out communications across much of Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The region is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who live in displacement camps following decades of ethnic conflict.
“Altogether 145 local people were killed during the cyclone,” a statement from Myanmar’s junta authorities said.
The number included four soldiers, 24 locals and 117 “Bengalis”, it added, using a pejorative term for the Rohingya.
Widely viewed as interlopers from Bangladesh, Rohingya are denied citizenship and access to health care in Myanmar and require permission to travel outside of their townships.
A Rohingya village leader previously told AFP that more than 100 people were missing from his village alone following the storm.
Another leader based near the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe told AFP that at least 105 Rohingya had died around the city, with counting still ongoing.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that now house almost one million Rohingya.
