It is a mystery that there's a place on earth where majority of its inhabitants do not know the deadly virus spreading across the globe. According to the human rights group, hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar's far west may know nothing about COVID-19 because of the yearlong internet shutdown since last June.
The Myanmar government, led by State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi, has ordered to cut down the internet access of nine townships in Myanmar due to concerns that it was being used to inflame clashes between the Myanmar military and insurgents.
Just this May, one township has regained its internet access, but eight townships remain without any internet service with about 800,000 people, remain in an information blackout.
Extended Internet Shutdown Putting Lives at Risk
Myanmar's extended shutdown is called upon by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as a threat that puts the lives of many at risk not only because it prevents people from reporting possible human rights abuses but also because it has cut down people from knowing public health campaigns about the coronavirus pandemic.
As of Monday, the country's Ministry of Health confirmed that it had recorded six deaths and 292 positive cases from over 64,532 tests.
A part of that case has been in crowded camps of Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships in northern Rakhine state, wherein more than 100,000 Rohingya Muslims live. Many of them have fled "clearance operations" conducted by the military against Rohingya insurgents in 2018.
The United Nations has called for the Myanmar military force to face an international tribunal on charges of genocide for killing Rohingya Muslims. Additionally, Rakhine Buddhists, who also live in camps near the area, became homeless due to the recent fighting.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread earlier this year, Suu Kyi's government has launched a "No Person Left Behind" information campaign on disease prevention, which includes the practice of social distancing.
However, Arakan National League for Democracy in the Upper House of Myanmar's Union Parliament representative MP Htoot May said that many people who live in northern Rakhine state and neighboring Chin state are unaware of COVID-19 because they have not received the public health notices circulated online.
So he has to explain to them the global pandemic from the very beginning, what social distancing means, and how to practice proper hand hygiene.
As of now, those people are more afraid of the insurgence rather than the virus.
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The Ongoing Fight in Myanmar
In late 2018, a fight broke between the Myanmar military, Tatmadaw, and the Arakan Army, which grants greater autonomy for Rakhine Buddhists, which comprises the majority of the population Rakhine state.
The internet shutdown has led to more civilian deaths as the war between the two groups continues because they are denied real-time information, according to an open letter by the Rakhine political and community groups.
Both sides have accused each other of atrocities, which are going unreported and undocumented, according to Khine Kayaw, an MP who represents the Rakhine National Party.
"Freedom of speech and access to information is the foundation of democracy. In this age, access to the internet is the democratic standard. Equality demands ready information on economics, education, health, and society," the letter reads.
Although Myanmar has imposed health measures to control the spread of coronavirus just like most of the countries, MP Htoot May believes that her record on the virus has no bearing on her election result due to the internet shutdown as large numbers of people, particularly in the far west of Myanmar, might not know about it.
