UN appeals for $32.5 mln in emergency aid for Myanmar

The United Nations on Friday issued an appeal for 32.5 million dollars in humanitarian aid for people displaced by recent fighting between the government and ethnic Kachin rebels in northern Myanmar and sectarian strife in western Myanmar. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also appealed to the Myanmar government to allow aid agencies better access to the conflict areas. "We hope that donors will respond quickly and that the government will quickly outline its medium-term plans to ensure that a situation of aid dependency is not created through isolation and separation of communities from each other and their livelihoods," the agency's director of operations, John Ging, said after concluding a four-day trip to Myanmar. Ging visited Kachin State, where fighting that broke out more than a year ago between government troops and the Kachin Independence Organization has displaced more than 60,000 people.