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BANGKOK : Despite the arrival on Thursday of a few
aid shipments in Yangon (Rangoon), the main city of Burma (Myanmar),
the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the
United States, and China remained worried that the death toll from
last weekend’s cyclone “Nargis” would climb to 100,000.
The latest count the Burmese
authorities admit to is 60,000 dead and more than 40,000 missing.
Until Thursday, planeloads of
supplies and heavy equipment needed to help millions of cyclone
victims remain largely stranded outside the country.
In a dramatic development, the
ruling junta agreed to accept US emergency aid, allowing at least
one military plane to deliver supplies to Yangon. But on Thursday
afternoon the US ambassador to Thailand had to hold a press
conference to announce that the US aid delivery was not going to
take place.
He told reporters it was not
clear if there was a miscommunication or if the junta just decided
to rescind the earlier go-signal.
In Geneva, the United Nations
said on Thursday it would immediately release $10 million from its
Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to help Burma’s cyclone
victims.
“The four Asian members of the
UN disaster assessment and coordination team based in Bangkok got
their visas for Myanmar on Wednesday,” said Elisabeth Byrs,
spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA).
But the secretive regime’s
earlier reluctance to allow foreign experts and other dedicated
relief flights into the country has caused intense frustration and
compounded the misery for a million people homeless and short of
food and water.
Without transport and fuel, aid
arriving piecemeal on commercial flights into Yangon cannot be
distributed effectively in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta region in
southern Myanmar, which was submerged in Saturday’s cyclone.
“The bottleneck is getting
[aid] out in the delta. That needs boats, helicopters, trucks . . .
there are upward of one million people in need of help,” said UN
Spokesman Richard Horsey.
Horsey, from the United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said about
5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles) of the cyclone-hit
region remain underwater.
And he confirmed that while some
shipments have arrived over the past two days, no dedicated aid
flights have landed in Yangon.
“UN aid has begun to arrive in
Yangon by cargo plane,” he said Thursday. “Some have come in on
Thai commercial flights, Thai cargo flights. More is expected
today.”
Even if they win permission to
launch a full-scale relief effort, aid organizations face tremendous
logistical problems including flooded roads, scarce fuel supplies,
and a shortage of boats as many were destroyed in the storm.
Unicef spokesman Shantha Bloemen
said the UN’s children’s fund had to distribute the supplies it
had in by road into the disaster zone, and was relying heavily on
the resources of the Myanmar Red Cross.
“The biggest concerns at the
moment are those areas that haven’t been reached and the more than
200 temporary shelters getting congested, where people have gathered
without clean water and sanitation,” she said.
“You need people to coordinate
where the equipment is going, there are complicated logistics
involved,” she said. “And how it will work . . . this is what
doesn’t seem clear yet.”
Horsey said that without
immediate assistance, the death toll—officially at nearly 23,000
with more than 42,000 missing—would climb.
AFP, Hsinhua
“We have to be fearful that
most of these (missing) people will be dead,” he said, adding that
the thousands of bodies rotting in floodwaters posed a grave health
risk to survivors.
“Fairly clearly, we’re
dealing with a situation where there could be a second round, where
people start dying from water-borne diseases.”
The United States and France have
both offered to send naval ships, currently on exercise in the
region, but France’s offer remained unanswered on Thursday.
OCHA has said that some of its
experts are scheduled to travel to Myanmar aboard a relief plane
which was due to leave Italy with 25 tons of aid on Wednesday but
still has not departed.
The World Food Program said it
was sending several aircraft loaded with high-energy biscuits and
other critical supplies — which would be the first to land into
the city — but their arrival had not been confirmed Thursday.
The UN refugee agency said
Wednesday that 22 tons of supplies were stuck at the border with
Thailand, waiting for Rangoon authorities to allow the aid shipments
to enter the country.
Horsey said visa restrictions are
hampering the plans of dozens of experts from the United Nations and
other civil society groups who are still working on breaking through
government red tape.
“That’s a great concern
because these are the people ... who are very experienced operating
in relief situations,” he said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have led calls for Burma’s
generals, who deeply mistrust most of the outside world, to admit
international disaster relief.
“It should be a simple matter.
It’s not a matter of politics. It’s a matter of a humanitarian
crisis,” Rice said.
Even China, which has massive
investments in Burma and has spoken and acted permissively of the
ruling military junta’s repression of citizens, especially
pro-democracy political parties, on Thursday said it hoped
“Maynmar would cooperate with international community.”
“Given the magnitude of the
disaster, the international community has expressed concern and
willingness to provide assistance,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin
Gang told reporters.
“This is natural and we hope
Myanmar will cooperate with the international community and have
consultations with the international community.”
Official state media in Myanmar
have put the number of dead and missing at more than 60,000, with
pressure mounting on the regime to open its borders to international
aid.
Qin said China had decided to
send another 30 million yuan (4.3 million dollars) in emergency aid
to the disaster-hit country, on top of the one-million-dollar
package it announced on Tuesday.
“The Chinese government and
people are highly concerned about the disaster in Myanmar and we are
ready to do our best to provide assistance. As for the specific
forms of assistance, there could be rescue teams, medical teams,”
Qin said.
But he urged the international
community to respect Myanmar’s sovereignty.
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