Myanmar’s regime leader Min Aung Hlaing attended a regional summit in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday – one week after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake devastated parts of the war-torn country. The death toll has exceeded 3,100, according to the regime in Naypyidaw. This led to an appeal for help by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
Shunned by most world leaders since leading a 2021 coup that overthrew an elected government, Min Aung Hlaing’s first trip to Thailand since then exploits a window opened by the earthquake to ramp up diplomacy at events such as the The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in Bangkok, which ends today.
On the sidelines, Min Aung Hlaing had two-way meetings with Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Amid the quake recovery effort, the regime leader will talk about “the potential for cooperation … to carry out rescue, relief and rehabilitation,” regime media reported.
The death toll from Myanmar’s earthquake on March 28 – one of the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian nation in a century – climbed to 3,145 with more than 4,500 injured and more than 200 missing, according to the regime.
“The earthquake has supercharged the suffering, with the monsoon season just around the corner,” Guterres told media on Thursday, referring to civil strife unleashed by the 2021 coup.
“I appeal for every effort to transform this tragic moment into an opportunity for the people of Myanmar.”
U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher is set to arrive in Myanmar on Friday, followed by a visit from the Special Envoy for Myanmar Julie Bishop “in the coming days.”
Rare international trip
Min Aung Hlaing, who led an entourage of regime officials, also met Nepal’s prime minister on Thursday ahead of the summit focused on technical and economic matters.
He sat between the prime ministers of Bhutan and Sri Lanka at the head table during Thursday’s dinner with heads of BIMSTEC nations, Thai government photographs show.
In a post on social media after meeting Min Aung Hlaing, Modi said cooperation on India-Myanmar connectivity, capacity building and infrastructure development featured in their discussions.
With the Thai prime minister, the regime leader discussed disaster prevention, transnational crime ,and repatriation of those pulled out of scam centres, according to Thai officials.
The BIMSTEC summit includes Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.
Even before the earthquake, millions had suffered in Myanmar’s widening civil war, triggered by the 2021 coup that ousted the government of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
It has decimated the mainly agrarian economy, driven more than 3.5 million people from their homes and crippled essential services such as healthcare.
Myanmar’s neighbours, such as China, India and Southeast Asian nations are among the countries that dispatched relief supplies and rescuers to aid the recovery effort in quake-hit areas home to about 28 million people.
Extreme heat and forecast heavy rain could cause disease outbreaks among earthquake survivors camping in the open, as the risk of cholera grows in such areas, namely in the Mandalay and Sagaing regions, as well as the capital of Naypyidaw.
“Response efforts still face significant logistical challenges … hampering the relief response,” the World Food Programme (WFP) stated on Thursday. Hurdles range from debris and damaged roads and facilities to telecoms disruption, WFP added.
Naypyidaw called for a temporary ceasefire on Wednesday, from April 2-22, in its operations against armed opponents, reflecting moves by a major alliance of ethnic armed groups and Myanmar’s parallel civilian-led National Unity Government (NUG), which commands the People’s Defense Force (PDF).
REUTERS
