The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday called on Taiwanese stranded in Myanmar to contact the local Taipei Economic and Cultural Office as soon as possible for assistance amid an escalation in violence in the Southeast Asian country.
Armed conflict broke out in northern Myanmar late last month, with the UN describing it as “the largest in scale and most extensive geographically” since a military coup in February 2021.
An alliance of ethnic minority insurgent groups joined forces with fighters calling for democracy to launch an attempt to challenge the junta’s rule, Reuters reported.
Photo: AFP
Taipei has so far helped 149 Taiwanese return to Taiwan, while 84 remain in the nation, ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said.
Traveling in northern Myanmar has become difficult and foreigners are prohibited from crossing through many areas, he said.
The office is working with overseas Taiwanese in Myanmar and international non-governmental organizations to help stranded Taiwanese, Liu said.
When receiving calls for assistance from Taiwanese, the office would locate the person right away and help them work out plans to seek safety, he said.
Regarding reports that Burmese authorities had as of Tuesday handed over 31,000 telecom fraud suspects to China as part of a bilateral effort to crack down on online scams, Liu said that the National Police Agency is looking into reports that six of the suspects are Taiwanese.
The agency would help them return to Taiwan if the report is found to be true, he added.
In other developments, the ministry has alerted Taiwanese residents and travelers in Zimbabwe about the seriousness of a local cholera epidemic.
The cholera outbreak in the southern African country has become increasingly serious, with more than 500 new cases reported every week since the end of last month, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Anthony Ho (賀忠義) said.
As of last week, there were more than 1,200 confirmed cases, more than 50 confirmed deaths from cholera and more than 150 deaths suspected to be from the disease this year, Ho said, citing Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and Child Care data.
Earlier this month, Zimbabwe declared a state of emergency in the capital, Harare, over the outbreak, which likely resulted from water contamination, he said.
Taiwanese in Zimbabwe should pay close attention to the epidemic and, when in need, contact the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa at 27-82-802-9380 or the ministry at 886-800-085-095, he said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its