“What happened in Sittwe last week was not just an attack on international organisations, but an attack on the entire humanitarian response in Rakhine State,” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar Renata Dessallien said in a statement released in Yangon on April 2.

The statement was issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs after a UN delegation headed by Ms Dessallien returned to Yangon from a visit to Sittwe.

It said the attacks in the Rakhine State capital on April 26 and 27 had “seriously disrupted” life-saving aid to displaced people, isolated villages and Rakhine communities.

The statement quoted Ms Dessallien as saying that talks with State and Union level authorities in Sittwe were “constructive” and had included assurances that“international obligations to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian staff will be met.”

The UN’s main priority was to work with the Government to enable more than 1,000 humanitarian staff to return to work to assist vulnerable people from all communities in Rakhine, it said.

The immediate effects of the disruption in humanitarian services was already being felt at camps for internally displaced people and isolated villages in the state, the statement said, adding that dry season water shortages could reach critical levels within a week in some IDP camps, particularly in Pauktaw.

“Nearly 15,000 children in IDP camps no longer have access to psycho-social support, while life-saving therapeutic treatment for more than 300 children with severe acute malnutrition in Sittwe has been suspended,” it said.

“A total of 1,300 metric tonnes of food will need to be distributed in Rakhine within the next two weeks, which will be a challenge in the absence of NGOs as implementing partners.”

International NGOs were extremely concerned about the impact of the violence against the humanitarian community and the severe reduction of activities supporting thousands of displaced and vulnerable people, the country director of Save the Children, Mr Kelland Stevenson, was quoted as saying in the statement.

“Without the immediate and full restoration of an enabling and secure environment to re-establish essential life-saving assistance, the humanitarian situation will rapidly deteriorate, putting children and their families at even greater risk,” Mr Stevenson said.

Despite efforts by the Ministry of Health, which deployed rapid response teams to Sittwe, only a small number of IDPs are receiving healthcare services, the OCHA statement said.

International NGOs normally provide an average of 400 emergency medical referrals to hospitals every month in Rakhine, it said.