AP
Posted: 2008-05-09 11:49:12
KAW HMU, Myanmar (May 9) — The United Nations says it will resume food aid flights to Myanmar on Saturday.
Death and Destruction1 of 12 Foreign aid workers deliver relief goods at a town in southern Myanmar, Friday. International aid organizations say the country military government has stymied efforts to bring supplies to hundreds of thousands of victims of Cyclone Nargis.
It also forecasts heavy rains next week in the country already devastated by a cyclone.
The U.N. food program says it will send two planes with goods to feed hungry survivors. The World Food Program had suspended help after Myanmar’s junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors.
“All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said.
WFP chief spokeswoman Nancy Roman said Friday that negotiations are continuing to release two planeloads of high-energy biscuits impounded by Myanmar.
At least 62,000 people are dead or missing in Myanmar, entire villages are submerged in the Irrawaddy delta and aid groups warned that the area is on the verge of a medical disaster.
The U.N. has grown increasingly critical of Myanmar’s military rulers’ refusal to let foreign aid workers into the country while the junta appeared overwhelmed and more than 1 million homeless people waited for food, medicine and shelter.
“The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts,” Risley said. “It’s astonishing.”
The junta said in a statement Friday it was grateful to the international community for its assistance — which has included 11 chartered planes loaded with aid supplies — but the best way to help was just to send in material rather than personnel.
Nearly a week after the storm, survivors are now having to contend with rotting corpses of people and animals as they wait for food, clean water and medicine.
“Many are not buried and lie in the water. They have started rotting and the stench is beyond words,” Anders Ladekarl, head of the Danish Red Cross.
About 20,000 body bags were being sent so volunteers from the Myanmar chapter of the Red Cross can start collecting bodies, he said.
The U.N. was putting together an urgent appeal to fund aid efforts over the next six months. Spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters that the exact amount of the appeal would be specified later Friday.
The International Organization for Migration says it is asking for $8 million as part of the appeal. The U.N. refugee agency says it needs $6 million to fund the immediate shelter and household needs of 250,000 people.
Entire villages were submerged in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta, with bodies floating in salty water and children ripped from their parents’ arms. At least 62,000 people are dead or missing, state media reported, and aid groups warned that thousands of children may have been orphaned and the area is on the verge of a medical disaster.
On Friday, Japan said it will give aid worth $10 million through the U.N. to Myanmar, adding to the massive amounts of aid that has been pledged by foreign governments.
But while accepting international aid, the isolationist regime of this Southeast Asian nation has refused to grant visas to foreign aid workers who could assess the extent of the disaster and manage the logistics.
Myanmar allowed the first major international aid shipment Thursday — four U.N. planes carrying high-energy biscuits, including one which was apparently turned back. On Friday, state-owned television showed a cargo plane from Italy with water containers, food and plastic sheets at Yangon international airport.
It is not clear how much of the aid is reaching the Irrawaddy delta. The U.N. estimates 1.5 million people have been “severely affected” and voiced “significant concern” about the disposal of dead bodies.
A Norway-based opposition news network, the Democratic Voice of Burma, provided graphic details of misery. In the village of Kongyangon, someone had written in Burmese, “We are all in trouble. Please come help us” on black asphalt, a video from the opposition group showed. A few feet away was another plea: “We’re hungry,” the words too small to be seen by air rescuers.
According to state media, 22,997 people died and 42,019 are missing from Cyclone Nargis, which hit the country’s Irrawaddy delta on Saturday. Shari Villarosa, who heads the United States Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses.
Grim assessments about what lies ahead continued: The aid group Action Against Hunger noted that the delta region is known as the country’s granary, and the cyclone hit before the harvest.
“If the harvest has been destroyed this will have a devastating impact on food security in Myanmar,” the group said.
Anders Ladegaard, secretary-general of the Danish Red Cross, called the relief operation “a nightmare.”
“There are problems to the aid inside (Myanmar) and there are problems to get the aid out to the delta area. There are almost no boats and no helicopters,” Ladegaard said by satellite telephone to Danish broadcaster DR.
In Yangon itself, the price of increasingly scarce water shot up by more than 500 percent, and rice and oil jumped by 60 percent over the last three days, the group said.
Hardships in the country’s largest city have prompted some embassies, including that of the U.S., to send diplomats’ families out of the country.
Although the military regime had begun allowing in the first major international aid shipments, it snubbed a U.S. offer to help cyclone victims.
By doing so, the junta refused to take advantage of Washington’s enormous ability to deliver aid quickly, which was evident during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.
With roads in the Irrawaddy delta washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large swaths of the region are accessible only by air, something few other countries are equipped to handle as well as the U.S.
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej told reporters Friday that he will try to go to Myanmar on Sunday to persuade the junta to accept U.S. help.
But the junta told Samak his Myanmar counterpart is too busy to meet with him, said a Thai army general, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
But a Taiwanese Buddhist leader who just returned from Yangon said Friday that Myanmar had mobilized soldiers and civilians to transport aid to cyclone victims.
“They try to handle the relief work by themselves as much as possible because they don’t have the time to deal with external criticism,” Master Hsin Tao said.