The Ethnic Health Committee (EHC) has demanded that the military not threaten or block activities carried out by ethnic armed organizations’ (EAO) health departments regarding COVID-19 prevention in ethnic states. The EHC also called on the military to halt all operations and violence in order to fight the pandemic. On April 27, the government formed a national COVID-19 coordination committee to negotiate with EAOs. The move was endorsed by President Win Myint. The EHC responded last week and said that even with the formation of this committee, EAO medics continue to be threatened in ethnic regions by government forces. There…
Author: Editor
Bus routes between Kalay town in Sagaing Region and Yangon started operating again on Thursday after being halted for one month as a coronavirus prevention measure. Seven bus lines drive between Kalay and Yangon; Shwe Mandalar, Chin Tawng Tan and High Class are the ones that have re-started their routes from the Kalay bus terminal. “We have allowed bus lines to operate between Kalay and Yangon again because the Yangon bus terminal has started to accept buses. The transportation authorities are likely to allow all bus companies across the country to run their operations again on May 15,” Soe Win,…
The World Food Program (WFP) reported that their food aid arrived in Paletwa on May 2 after their convoy came under attack by an unidentified armed group while traveling through southern Chin State. “We were able to successfully send WFP’s food rations to Paletwa town. I would like to thank the Chin State government and other organizations for their cooperation. But we cannot stop our duties here,” Stephen Anderson, resident representative of the WFP in Burma, told Khonumthung News. Locals in Paletwa—as well as the 3,700 internally displaced people (IDPs) seeking refuge there—have faced food shortages since waterways and roads…
More than 50 people who had contact with a confirmed COVID-19 patient have tested negative for the virus after being monitored in the public hospital in Hakha, Chin State. Blood samples from 52 people who were known to have been in contact with the 150th patient to come down with the virus have been negative; four other people tested in quarantine have also been confirmed as negative, according to Dr. Mang Biak Kung, head of Hakha’s hospital. “They released the laboratory test results at 7:00 a.m. this morning,” he said on Monday. Nearly 130 people have been quarantined in Hakha…
Forty-eight people that had contact with Burma’s COVID-19 case-150 were placed in a government quarantine in Hakha, the capital of Chin State. Myint Oo, a Hakha general administration department officer, told Khonumthung News they’ll be quarantined for 21 days in Hakha College. Most are from the same village as case-150, and the rest are from Hakha and Thangtlang. Myint Oo explained that the eight from Thangtlang were on the same bus as case-150. After returning from China, the woman stayed at a friend’s house in Kalay, located in Sagaing Region, instead of a government-mandated 14-day quarantine. When she left the…
Burma’s COVID-19 case 150 stayed at a friend’s house instead of doing a government-mandated 14-day quarantine when she returned from China. After arriving in Burma, the eighteen-year-old stayed at her friend’s house in Kalay, located in Sagaing Region. Shar Mee, a parliamentarian for Kalay township, told Khonumthung News, the woman’s friend claimed they weren’t informed that she had recently returned from abroad and didn’t report she was staying at their house with Home Affairs. The woman’s “name wasn’t included in the quarantine list in Kalay,” Shar Mee explained. Yesterday, blood and tissue samples of six people that had contact with…
In a video conference streamed online on Friday, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi met with three people from Chin State to share updates on the COVID-19 pandemic, but members of civil society said the discussion was not representative of the situation on the ground in Tedim Township, where five patients are located. Present in the talks with the State Counsellor was Dr. Aung Ngwe San, director of the Chin State health department; Tang Awng Shein, director of the Chin State municipal department; and Ah Cieur, who works with the Hakha COVID-19 Response Committee. Locals pointed out that no representatives…
Four civilians were killed and three injured after fighting broke out in downtown Paletwa between the Burma Army and Arakan Army (AA) in southern Chin State. Two children and a woman died instantly when a shell landed in the Myanmar Economic Bank in downtown Paletwa on April 22. Another woman was killed by shrapnel while working in her garden in Meletwa on April 21. Ester, 28, was working in the bank when she was killed with her daughter, Mai Elizabeth Moe Moe Aung, 4, and Maung Aung Naing Win, 9. Than Than Win, 49, was killed by shrapnel near her…
A shipment of rice that was sent to Chin State’s Paletwa township falls short of what’s needed to feed residents for the month, according to a civil society organization. Salai John Pai Nang, from the Relief and Rehabilitation Committee for Chin IDPs (RRCCI), said the rice sent by the government, civil society organizations and private donors won’t last the famished township more than a few days. Fighting between the Burma Army and Arakan Army (AA) has blocked water and land routes to the strife-affected township, Salai John Pai Nang said. Now it is “not only the IDPs (internally displaced persons)…
The government extended the lockdown in a town in Chin State, the location of Burma’s first confirmed COVID-19 case, for another seven days. Keptel, in Tedim township, has been under lockdown since March 26, after a 36-year-old man that returned from the US attended a prayer service before he was to be married. The seven-day extension came into effect on April 21. At least four people who had contact with the bridegroom, including his mother that also returned from the US at the same time as the man, tested positive. The latest case on April 20 was a male from…