Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it has been “deeply shocked” by the Myanmar government’s decision to expel the prominent aid group after over two decades of operation in the country, Press TV reports.
In a statement issued on Friday, the aid group slammed the Myanmar government’s “unilateral” decision and said it was “extremely concerned about the fate of tens of thousands of patients currently under MSF’s care” across Myanmar.
“In Rakhine State, MSF was unable to provide primary health care to the tens of thousands of vulnerable people in camps displaced by the ongoing humanitarian crisis or in isolated villages,” added the MSF statement.
The Myanmar government began to pile up pressure on the aid agency after it reported that it had treated nearly two dozen Muslims injured during communal violence in the western state of Rakhine in recent weeks.
On Friday, Myanmar’s presidential spokesman, Ye Htut, said the operations of Doctors Without Borders had been suspended since Wednesday, Myanmar Freedom newspaper reported.
The Myanmar government says Doctors Without Borders lacks transparency in its work. However, the group has rejected the accusation, saying it has always observed medical ethics and the principles of impartiality.
Experts believe that Myanmar’s decision to suspend MSF’s activities is politically motivated.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced and hundreds killed since Myanmar’s ethnic violence erupted in 2012 after Buddhist extremists attacked the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State.
International bodies and human rights organizations have accused Myanmar’s government of turning a blind eye to the violence, while aiding the extremist Buddhists in carrying out crimes against Muslims.
