The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) urgently calls for more humanitarian support in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where armed conflict, blockades, and funding cuts drive a dramatic rise in hunger and malnutrition. WFP reports that 57 percent of families in central Rakhine are unable to afford basic food needs, up from 33 percent in December 2024.
The WFP's warning on Tuesday comes after a June UN report found that Myanmar is one of the world’s most critical hunger hotspots and requires urgent attention to save lives and livelihoods.
While the most recent findings suggest alarming levels of food insecurity and indicate a worsening acute malnutrition situation in central Rakhine, the situation in northern Rakhine is expected to be much worse due to active conflict and access issues.
“People are trapped in a vicious cycle; cut off by conflict, stripped of livelihoods, and left with no humanitarian safety net,” said Michael Dunford, WFP Country Director in Myanmar.
“We are hearing heartbreaking stories of children crying from hunger and mothers skipping meals. Families are doing everything they can, but they cannot survive this alone.”
Reports from community feedback reveal an alarming rise in signals of distress. Families are forced to take desperate measures to survive, including rising debt, begging, domestic violence, dropping out of school, increased social tensions, and even human trafficking.
The hunger crisis is driven by prolonged armed conflict, severe movement restrictions, soaring food prices, and reduced support due to a significant decrease in humanitarian funding. In April 2025, WFP was forced to cut lifesaving support to over one million people across Myanmar due to funding shortages.
The global crisis of insufficient humanitarian funding is having major negative repercussions in Myanmar, where only 12 percent of the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) has been funded.
Despite dwindling resources, WFP said it plans to resume limited lifesaving support in the worst-hit areas. The UN agency is urgently calling on the international community to ramp up humanitarian funding and on the authorities to allow unimpeded humanitarian access.
WFP requires US$ 30 million to assist 270,000 people in Rakhine for the next six months.
“Without urgent action, this crisis will spiral into a full-blown disaster,” said Dunford. “The world must not look away.”
Fierce civil war and devastating earthquakes
Myanmar faces multiple, interconnected humanitarian needs caused by persecution, protracted armed conflict, intercommunal violence, and natural disasters. Following more than four years of civil war and devastating earthquakes in March 2025, it is estimated that more than 38 percent of the country's 57 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Since the military seized power in a coup in 2021, Myanmar has been embroiled in a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of civilians. Since October 2023, a coalition of ethnic rebel forces has escalated its offensive to oust the junta.
The fighting has been particularly intense in Rakhine State, where the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organization, took control of the regional military headquarters and numerous bases, obtaining nearly complete control of the state. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have been driven from their homes in Myanmar since intense fighting between junta forces and the AA swept through Rakhine State.
Up to 150,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, over the past 18 months, fleeing targeted violence and persecution in Rakhine State and the ongoing war in neighboring Myanmar.
Civilians caught between the military and the AA faced frequent killings, disappearances, mutilations, arbitrary arrests, torture, village destruction, and widespread displacement. According to the UN, conditions in Rakhine currently remain unfit for the safe and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees.
Humanitarian needs in Myanmar have reached record levels, with 21.9 million people in need of aid. Before the earthquakes hit, 19.9 million people were identified as needing assistance. Following the March earthquakes, an additional 2 million people are now in urgent need.
An estimated 3.5 million people have been displaced within the country. Some 1.5 million people have fled to neighboring countries or crossed borders by sea. Civilians continue to flee their homes due to fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and various non-state armed groups (NSAGs).
Human rights investigators reveal systematic torture and sexual violence
Myanmar is also facing a major human rights crisis. According to UN reports, there is strong evidence that the MAF and its affiliated militias, as well as opposition armed groups, are perpetrating increasingly frequent and brazen crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
On Tuesday, UN-mandated independent investigators announced that they had uncovered systematic torture and sexual violence in Myanmar’s military-run detention facilities, including beatings, electric shocks, strangulation, and gang rape. They described a pattern of intensifying atrocities across the country.
In its annual report, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM, or the Mechanism) stated that it had made "important progress" in collecting evidence of these crimes against people detained by Myanmar's military authorities and in identifying the perpetrators of these crimes.
The report's findings are based on information collected from over 1,300 sources, including nearly 600 eyewitness testimonies and other evidence.
The IIMM was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to investigate serious international crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011. Its mission is to collect and preserve relevant evidence and prepare analyses to facilitate criminal prosecutions of those most responsible for these crimes.
“We have uncovered significant evidence, including eyewitness testimony, showing systematic torture in Myanmar detention facilities,” said Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Mechanism.
“We have made headway in identifying the perpetrators, including the commanders who oversee these facilities, and we stand ready to support any jurisdictions willing and able to prosecute these crimes.”
The report focuses on the period from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, and details the torture that has been documented in Myanmar’s detention facilities, including beatings, electric shocks, strangulation, gang rape, burning of sexual body parts, and other forms of sexual violence.
The Mechanism has also collected evidence identifying perpetrators who have summarily executed captured combatants or civilians accused of being informants. According to the report's findings, these killings have been carried out by both the Myanmar security forces and affiliated militias, as well as by opposition armed groups.
The report details intensified investigations into air attacks on schools, homes, and hospitals, which injured and killed civilians — including in the days following the deadly March 2025 earthquake, when rescue operations were still ongoing.
“Our report highlights a continued increase in the frequency and brutality of atrocities committed in Myanmar,” said Koumjian.
“We are working towards the day when the perpetrators will have to answer for their actions in a court of law.”
The UN-appointed investigators have opened new investigations into atrocities committed against various communities in Rakhine State as the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army battle for control of the territory.
Meanwhile, they continue to investigate earlier crimes committed by the Myanmar security forces during the 2016 and 2017 atrocities against the Rohingya, focusing on evidence that links specific individuals to the crimes.
In August 2017, more than 740,000 Rohingya fled to Cox's Bazar to escape violence and persecution in Myanmar. Previous large-scale displacements of Rohingya from Rakhine State occurred following violence in 1978, 1992, 2012, and 2016.
The Mechanism proactively shares relevant evidence and analysis with authorities working on ongoing legal cases concerning the Rohingya at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and in other jurisdictions.
On November 27, 2024, the ICC prosecutor announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar's acting president, General Min Aung Hlaing, for his role in the 2017 deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, which constitutes a crime against humanity. The Mechanism's evidence contributed to the ICC's investigations.
Further information
Full text: Report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, seventh report submitted by the IIMM to the UN Human Rights Council, published August 12, 2025
https://iimm.un.org/sites/default/files/2025/08/IIMM%20Annual%20Report%202025%20EN.pdf