27.05.2008
More than 1 million Myanmar cyclone victims will soon be able to receive their first assistance if the country’s military regime quickly allows foreign experts into the affected areas, the United Nations said Monday. The United Nations says it can reach the estimated 2.4 million Myanmar cyclone survivors by the end of the week if the country’s military regime allows foreign experts into field.
International aid agencies meanwhile prepared to test the junta’s promises to allow their workers access to the estimated 2.4 million victims in all of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis.
After meeting junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the reclusive leader agreed that international aid workers will be able “to freely reach the needy people.”
Aid organizations immediately began planning to send hitherto banned teams into the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta and resubmit visa applications for staffers abroad that had earlier been rejected.
Kathleen Cravero of the UN Development Programme told the BBC that visas had become more easily available and access to affected areas was getting better. But she said more was needed and said the UN would continue to monitor the Burmese government’s stance.
Speaking from Rangoon, Ms Cravero told the BBC that since the top-level meeting, the situation had improved somewhat.
“In the last few days the visa situation has greatly opened up and access to the affected areas has begun to open up. So if we can call that fragile but concrete evidence, that’s been encouraging,” she said.
“But of course it has to open up much more, both in terms of getting the right experts in and getting those experts to the areas where it counts.”
A senior UN official also says there are fragile signs that Burma’s co-operation with the international aid effort for victims of Cyclone Nargis is improving.
Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian operation in Bangkok, said its logistical operations have improved in recent days and more boats and helicopters will be arriving in the coming days.
“Now, if we can get these experts out, we can start putting in place the water purification machines, warehousing and the other things that we need and this operation can quickly scale up,” Richard Horsey told The Associated Press.
“By quickly scale up, I mean that in the coming days we can start to reach all of those that need to be reached. that’s the aim and we aim to do that as quickly as possible.”
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it has started negotiations with the government over allowing three teams that include a total of six international aid workers into the delta.
“We’re hoping to get those teams in the field to start providing fresh water to the people,” said IFRC spokeswoman France Hurtubise.
The U.N. has estimated of the 2.4 million people affected by the storm, about 42 percent had received some kind of emergency assistance. But of the 2 million people living in the 15 worst-affected townships, only 23 percent had been reached.
The International Red Cross said Monday at least 1.5 million people, many of them hungry and ailing, remained homeless in the rain-swept delta.
Ban’s mission to knock down Myanmar’s barriers climaxed Sunday when donor nations offered more than $100 million to help the country recover from the cyclone.
But they warned the ruling generals they will not fully open their wallets until they are given access to the hardest-hit areas.
Speaking to The Associated Press after the meeting of 51 donor nations, Ban indicated that Myanmar’s isolationist junta might soon allow foreign aid workers, unhindered, into the devastated Irrawaddy Delta.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that this could be a turning point for Myanmar to be more flexible, more practical, and face the reality as it is on the ground,” Ban said.
Before leaving Bangkok, Thailand, for New York on Sunday night, he said he would remain “fully, continuously and personally engaged” in the crisis, and return to Myanmar “before long.”
The French government said it plans to unload 1,000 tons of humanitarian supplies aboard its vessel, the Mistral, in Thailand and turn it over to the United Nations World Food Program for transfer to Myanmar.