Food stocks for 200,000 people in an aid dependent region of western Myanmar are running out after deliveries were blocked, the UN food agency said yesterday.
World Food Programme spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said truck deliveries of foreign food aid from the western port of Sittwe to a nearby region had been held up for ten days.
"The WFP is very concerned about the delays imposed on sending food from Sittwe to the state of north Rakhine (Arakan)," Berthiaume said without giving further details about the hold up.
Two hundred thousand people there receive food aid, she added.
"It's becoming worrying because our food stocks are running out," she added.
Myanmar suffers from severe levels of malnutrition. Berthiaume said about 32 percent of under five year-olds suffered from stunted growth according to the government's own figures.
UN aid workers and human rights groups said this week that high food prices and shortages had helped drive people onto the country's streets, culminating in the military junta's bloody crackdown.