Cnn
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The Military Government in power of Myanmar has announced a temporary cease-fire in operations against armed opposition groups to help recovery efforts after the devastating earthquake on Friday.
“For having paid sympathy to the victims of the earthquake across the country, for providing the effective rescue and rehabilitation operation,” the truce will last until April 22, said the MRTV managed by the state.
More than 2,700 people died in Myanmar after the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country for years, said the government. Hundreds of others remain missing, which means that the number of deaths should increase.
Aid agencies have warned that the destruction caused by the magnitude 7.7 earthquake leads to a medical crisis.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday that people had lost access to health care and clean water.
The Mikhael de Souza coordinator on the Médecins Without Borders (MSF) said that the lack of drinking water could cause disease.
“Water, both in quantity and in quality, is a lot of lack throughout the country and especially in the regions affected by the earthquake,” said Souza in a voice note on Wednesday. “The lack of water creates a problem in terms of immediate survival, but could also create a problem in terms of epidemics in the future that we certainly want to avoid.”
The anti-regime authority Sagaing Federal Unit Hluttaw said during the weekend that the organizations that had been recovered under the rubble has spread “a foul odor which has serious health risks”.
The country has also been involved in the civil war for four years launched by a bloody and economically destructive military coup, which saw the forces of the junta fight rebel groups across the country.
The coup d’etat and the conflicts that followed beaten its health infrastructure, leaving it poorly equipped to cope with large natural disasters.
The National Government of National Unity (NUG) of Myanmar – a branching of the legislators filed during the coup – declared during the weekend a temporary break on offensive military operations, “except for defensive actions”, to help facilitate rescue operations after the earthquake on Friday. He said the break would last two weeks from March 30.
But Amnesty International reported on Tuesday that the military junta had continued air strikes in the days following the earthquake, citing testimonies which he had gathered with people on the ground.
The country’s expanses are beyond the control of the military junta and are managed by a patchwork of ethnic rebels and militias, which makes the compilation of reliable information extremely difficult.
MRTV also pointed out on Wednesday that the Chairman of the State Board of Directors (SAC) Min Aung Hlaing would attend a regional summit in Thailand from April 3 to 4 to discuss the response to the earthquake.
