More food reached Myanmar’s hungry cyclone victims on Sunday as roads were cleared of fallen trees and debris, but there was no sign the government would let foreign experts handle the aid distribution that the ruling military junta was accused of manipulating.
“Visas for international humanitarian personnel remain a critical issue, and one on which the UN and Myanmar’s regional partners are engaged,” an internal report from the UN humanitarian coordinating agency said.
The junta says it only wants international relief material and money, not the people to manage it. It wants to hand out all donated supplies on its own to an estimated 2 million people who are without food or shelter and face the threat of diseases following cyclone Nargis, which battered the country on May 3.
Debbie Stothard, head of the Southeast Asian human rights group ALTSEAN-Burma, said the ruling generals were manipulating aid and delivering it selectively, ignoring the needy.
“Even in Yangon which is reachable by the regime, people are complaining they are not getting aid. What they are getting is rotting rice,” she said.
UN staff in Myanmar were reporting “significant progress in clearing roadways, and the piped water supply has been partially restored to some parts of Yangon city,” the UN report said.
It said helicopter loads of international aid arriving in Yangon were being relayed to Pathein for distribution in the Irrawaddy delta.
Meanwhile, a cargo plane chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross carrying 35 tons of aid for victims landed in Yangon early on Sunday, the ICRC said.
The plane was also carrying sanitation equipment, including a mobile water-treatment plant to provide drinking water for 10,000 people, it said.
Death toll tops 28,450
Meanwhile, the death toll has risen to 28,458, with 33,416 people still missing, state television announced on Sunday.
Foreign embassy officials in Myanmar have warned that the death toll is likely closer to 100,000, and the UN has warned that tens of thousands more could die unless vital aid reaches some two million people.
Govt to go ahead
New York, PTI: While the international community was rushing aid to Myanmar for survivors of cyclone Nargis, its government was exporting tons of rice through its main port, a media report said.
In the report from Thilawa in Myanmar, the Los Angeles Times said four of the five berths at the port for oceangoing container vessels were empty but a crane was loading large white sacks filled with rice into a freighter.
The regime, the paper said, has a monopoly on rice exports and had said this week that it planned to meet commitments to sell rice, whose price has reached record high in the world market, to countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
