Chronic Emergency: Health and Human Rights in Eastern Burma

OSI grantee Backpack Health Worker Team (BPHWT) released a report detailing the health crisis facing internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in the eastern conflict zones of Burma and linking them to the prevalence of human rights abuses in the area. Chronic Emergency is a result of five years of systematic surveys in IDP communities.

The BPHWT report concludes that without addressing the factors which drive this health crisis, in particular the oppressive and ineffective military government of Burma, there will be no sustainable solution to this chronic emergency.

Thai senator Jon Ungphakorn, a member of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, criticizes the Burmese regime for the ongoing health crisis in eastern Burma in an introduction to the report. He goes on to call for UN Security Council action to address the international security implications of this growing public health crisis.

“With abysmal statistics like these, it is no wonder the regime tries so hard to hide them from the world," Ungphakorn writes. "The Burmese military junta is the source of the problem, not only through its abuses and neglect of the welfare of the people, but also through increasing restrictions on humanitarian aid efforts, particularly to ethnic minorities living in rural Burma.”

The report is available for download on the BPHWT website at www.geocities.com/maesothtml/bphwt/index.html.