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UN Team to Access Myanmar's Rakhine for 1st Time

Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
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UN Team to Access Myanmar's Rakhine for 1st Time

Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP

Representatives of UN agencies will be permitted to visit Rakhine state in Myanmar on Thursday for the first time since the start of a massive exodus of minority Rohingya Muslims in August.

"There will be a trip organized by the government, probably tomorrow, to Rakhine," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday.

"We hope above all that it is a first step toward much freer and wider access to the area," he said at his daily news briefing.

He said the chiefs of UN agencies would take part in the trip.

The UN has drawn up a contingency plan to feed up to 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and warned that those who fled will not be returning home soon.

"All the UN agencies together have now set a plan for a new influx of 700,000. We can cover if the new influx reaches 700,000," the World Food Program's deputy chief in Bangladesh, Dipayan Bhattacharyya, said on Wednesday.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said that for those who have fled to Bangladesh - nearly half a million Rohingya refugees - "return will take time, if it happens, if the violence stops."

The International Organization for Migration has estimated that there are more than 800,000 Rohingya currently in Bangladesh, including those who fled Myanmar before the latest crisis.  

Desperately needing more help, Bangladesh’s junior health minister Zahid Malek said Dhaka has sought US$250 million from the World Bank to provide healthcare to the Rohingya.

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Chinese Ship Runs Aground Off Philippines-occupied Island in Disputed South China Sea

Philippine marines board rubber boats at the Philippine-occupied Thitu island, locally called Pag-asa island in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jim Gomez)
Philippine marines board rubber boats at the Philippine-occupied Thitu island, locally called Pag-asa island in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jim Gomez)
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Chinese Ship Runs Aground Off Philippines-occupied Island in Disputed South China Sea

Philippine marines board rubber boats at the Philippine-occupied Thitu island, locally called Pag-asa island in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jim Gomez)
Philippine marines board rubber boats at the Philippine-occupied Thitu island, locally called Pag-asa island in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday June 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jim Gomez)

A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said Sunday.

When Filipino forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island on Saturday because of bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help but later saw that the ship had been extricated, regional navy spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said.

No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among the crewmembers or if the ship was damaged, Collado said.

Confrontations have spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed waters in recent years.

"The alertness of our troops is always there,” Col. Xerxes Trinidad of the Armed Forces of the Philippines told reporters. But when they saw that a probable accident had happened, “we tried to provide assistance as professionals” in accordance with international law on helping distressed vessels at sea.

"We’re always following international law,” Trinidad said.

Filipino villagers living in a fishing village on Thitu, which they call Pagasa island, immediately informed the Philippine military and coast guard after seeing the Chinese ship lying in the shallows about 1.5 nautical miles (2.7 kilometers) from their village, said MP Albayda, a local Filipino official, told The Associated Press.

“They got worried because the Chinese were so close but it was really the strong wind and waves that caused the ship to run aground," said Albayda, adding that other Chinese ships pulled the stricken vessel away.

The stricken ship resembled what the Philippine military had repeatedly said were suspected Chinese militia ships, which had backed the Chinese coast guard and navy in blocking and harassing Philippine coast guard and military vessels in the disputed waters, a busy conduit for global trade and commerce.

Thitu Island is home to a Philippine fishing village and Filipino forces and is the largest of nine islands and islets occupied by the Philippines. It lies about 26 kilometers (16 miles) from Subi Reef, which China transformed into an island base along with six other barren reefs to reinforce its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in the long-simmering territorial standoffs, an Asian flashpoint that many fear could pit China and the United States in a major conflict.

The US does not lay any claim to the South China Sea but has repeatedly warned that it's obligated to defend the Philippines, it's longtime treaty ally, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.