The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN's special envoy on Myanmar has begun a humanitarian mission to the country, ASEAN chair the Philippines said on Wednesday 28 October. The envoy, Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, will lead a mission including a trip to Myanmar's Shan State and engagements in the capital Naypyitaw, although no details of the engagements were provided, and Myanmar's army-backed government had yet to confirm the trip when Reuters reported it. In August that government said there was no longer a need for a special envoy.

A two-day visit, a month-long operation

The mission is run by an ASEAN Monitoring Team in coordination with the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, beginning in Taunggyi in Southern Shan State and covering Kayin State, Southern Shan State and Northern Shan State. It launches a month-long operation expected to reach more than 11,000 households with rice, family kits and hygiene supplies, and marks the centre's first humanitarian delivery in Northern Shan State, a region where access has long been constrained by conflict and insecurity. The two timeframes describe different things and should not be merged: the envoy's visit itself is described as two days, while the aid operation it launches runs for a month.

A crisis the mission enters

Myanmar is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with aid agencies estimating that nearly 16 million people, about a third of the population, will require humanitarian assistance this year, and roughly 4 million displaced by conflict, economic hardship and natural disasters. Reuters puts the civil war toll since the 2021 military coup at an estimated 100,000 killed and more than 3.5 million displaced. Lazaro has previously requested access to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, detained since she was toppled in the coup, and Myanmar's top leadership remains barred from top ASEAN meetings over a lack of compliance with an ASEAN-led peace plan, even as some member states have recently welcomed coup leader Min Aung Hlaing for official visits.

Sources: Reuters and BusinessMirror.