BANGKOK (Reuters) – The loss of life toll from Myanmar’s devastating earthquake climbed to three,354, with 4,850 injured and 220 lacking, state media mentioned on Saturday, because the visiting U.N. assist chief praised humanitarian and group teams for main the help response.
The chief of the navy authorities, Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing, was again within the capital Naypyitaw after a uncommon overseas journey to attend a summit in Bangkok of South and Southeast Asian nations, the place he additionally met individually with the leaders of Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and India.
Min Aung Hlaing reaffirmed to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the junta’s plans to carry “free and honest” elections in December, Myanmar state media mentioned.
Modi referred to as for a post-quake ceasefire in Myanmar’s civil warfare to be made everlasting, and mentioned the elections wanted to be “inclusive and credible”, an Indian overseas affairs spokesperson mentioned on Friday.
Critics have derided the deliberate election as a sham to maintain the generals in energy by proxies.
Since overthrowing the elected civilian authorities of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, the navy has struggled to run Myanmar, leaving the economic system and fundamental providers, together with healthcare, in tatters, a state of affairs exacerbated by the March 28 quake.
The civil warfare that adopted the coup has displaced greater than 3 million individuals, with widespread meals insecurity and greater than a 3rd of the inhabitants in want of humanitarian help, the U.N. says.
United Nations assist chief Tom Fletcher spent Friday evening in Myanmar’s second-biggest metropolis Mandalay, close to the epicentre of the quake, posting on X that humanitarian and group teams had led the response to the quake with “braveness, ability and dedication”.
“Many themselves misplaced every little thing, and but stored heading out to assist survivors,” he mentioned.
The U.N. Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned on Friday the junta was proscribing assist provides to quake-hit areas the place communities didn’t again its rule. The U.N. workplace mentioned it was investigating 53 reported assaults by the junta towards opponents, together with airstrikes, of which 16 have been after the ceasefire was declared on Wednesday.
A junta spokesman didn’t reply to calls searching for remark.
(Reporting by Shoong Naing; Writing by John Mair; Modifying by William Mallard)
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