Over Half of Burma’s Cyclone Survivors Have Yet To See Aid
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BANGKOK, Thailand — A month after cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta more than half of the survivors have received no aid at all, and the junta’s policies are making matters worse, according to reports from the area.
Access to the region is still tightly controlled by checkpoints, but accounts describe a living hell without food, drinking water, or shelter as the monsoon rains drench mentally disturbed survivors. The bodies of people and animals still lie in fields and waterways. Disease is common.
Soldiers are closing down relief camps and driving people back to villages where they have nothing, and threatening others with arrest when they arrive in towns seeking aid.
The regime says 133,000 people were killed or went missing on the night when 12-foot waves washed 25 miles inland, although foreign governments believe the true figure could be 200,000. In the appalling conditions, reports suggest, more people are dying.
It is 12 days since Secretary-General Ban won an assurance from Senior General Than Shwe that international relief workers would be given full access to the delta.
But the United Nations said that only 15 international staff were allowed into the area last week and agencies still have no permanent presence there.
A U.N. helicopter that arrived on May 22 was only allowed to begin flights to the delta on Monday. Red tape continues to limit the number of boats, lorries, and satellite telephones available to the relief effort.
There has been some improvement. The United Nations said yesterday that 49% of the 2.4 million people in need of assistance have received international aid on at least one occasion, compared with only 23% who had received aid by May 25. But even those who have received something have not received enough.
Nine more U.N. helicopters are expected to arrive in Rangoon this week, two weeks after the regime gave permission for them to be imported. It is unclear when or if they will be given permission to fly to the delta.
Other aspects of the relief mission are also making very slow progress.
A U.N. appeal for $200 million is still well short of its target. World Food Program said its $70 million food aid project faced a 64% funding shortfall.
Following the last comparable natural disaster — the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 — foreign governments donated $2 billion in the first week.
