AP
Posted: 2008-05-09 12:44:59

BANGKOK, May 9 (Kyodo) - Myanmar’s military government seized U.N. aid supplies meant for victims of last week’s devastating cyclone, the Associated Press reported Friday.

“All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations’ World Food Program in Bangkok, was quoted as saying.

The seizure promoted the U.N. World Food Programme to announce that it would suspend the shipment of further supplies to Myanmar.

The WFP, however, said later it will deliver relief supplies Saturday as planned. “The World Food Programme has decided to send in two relief flights as planned tomorrow, while discussions continue with the government of Myanmar on the distribution of the food that was flown in today, and not released to WFP,” the WFP said in a statement.

Earlier Friday, two WFP flights arrived with high-energy biscuits, sufficient to feed 95,000 hungry people in Myanmar, the WFP said.

An estimated 1.5 million people in Myanmar have been impacted by the devastating cyclone that wreaked havoc in the country over the weekend, according to the United Nations.