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BANGKOK: The first of 10 helicopters contracted by the UN’s World
Food Program (WFP) arrived in Myanmar on Thursday to help speed
relief to remote villages hit by Cyclone Nargis, a spokesman for the
agency said.
Each will be used to ferry supplies from the
main city of Yangon to distant parts of the Irrawaddy Delta, where
many villages are inaccessible by road, WFP Spokesman Marcus Prior
said.
“It’s very good news,” Prior told Agence
France-Presse. “We’ve got barges in Yangon, lots of boats,
trucks and now helicopters. We’re confident that we’ll be able
to move what we have.”
Nine more helicopters are expected in the coming
days, he said.
Poor access, logistical bottlenecks and other
problems have beset the relief operation, in addition to a decision
by the ruling generals to keep out most foreign disaster experts.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon flew to Yangon
on Thursday to press the regime to accept a full-scale relief
operation.
Prior said the WFP has purchased an additional
10,000 tons of rice after receiving approval from Myanmar’s
government Wednesday, increasing the food supplies available for
desperate survivors of the storm.
The United Nations estimates that only 25
percent of those in need are receiving international emergency aid.
Despite the military regime’s insistence that
reports of survivors who are not getting enough aid were the work of
“traitors,” Agence France-Presse reporters who have slipped into
the hard-hit southern delta have found many without state help.
-- AFP
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