|
Nearly two weeks after the cyclone swept through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, foreign aid still amounts to little more than a trickle. -- PHOTO: AFP
|
|
|
BANGKOK - MOST victims of Myanmar's devastating cyclone remain without emergency food nearly two weeks after the storm, aid agencies said Thursday, although life-saving goods are slowly snaking out to survivors.
The latest United Nations internal report said between 1.6 and 2.5 million people were severely affected by the storm, with about 550,000 people now huddled in temporary shelters in the Irrawaddy delta.
'People have been migrating outwards from the most affected areas in search of basic necessities,' the report said.
Those necessities have not changed since the storm rammed into the rice-growing Irrawaddy delta region and the economic hub Yangon on May 2 and 3 - people need food, clean water, shelter and medicine.
Without any helicopters and a lack of experienced staff allowed by the junta on the ground, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Marcus Prior said the agency was struggling to reach hungry people quickly.
So far, WFP food had reached 50,400 people - a small proportion of up to 750,000 of the survivors facing hunger and starvation. Myanmar says the storm left more than 66,000 people dead or missing.
'We have 700 tonnes of rice, high-energy biscuits and beans in the affected areas,' he told reporters. 'We are working to get to the rest of them as quickly as possible.'
Another concern for aid agencies is whether they will have control over the distribution of their own goods, after Myanmar's reclusive military regime insisted that it could handle the delivery of goods itself.
New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged international donors to keep a close eye on their supplies to make sure they were not being siphoned off by the army in the impoverished country.
Most aid agencies said they had no reports of any pilfering of goods, and that they were monitoring their supplies.
'Our first flight is today (Thursday) and we're kind of testing the pipeline to see if it works. It's important for us to control the whole pipeline from beginning to end,' said James East, spokesman for the aid group World Vision.
Save the Children said it had so far reached 100,000 people - half what they would expect in a normal relief situation - while the United States on Thursday delivered five more planeloads of shelter and medical supplies.
'Every flight that we take in is one flight getting us closer in the right direction. Any assistance is more than a week ago,' Rebecca Gustafson, USAID spokeswoman, told reporters.
Some visas for aid workers were slowly being granted, but relief agencies said many more were needed if supplies were to reach people in time.
'These guys (the foreign experts) sit behind computers and make a map of the need and give it to the guy with the truck full of food. It's critical,' said World Vision?s East.
EU aid commissioner Louis Michel told reporters on Wednesday that Myanmar could face a famine after the cyclone devastated the key rice growing area.
The UN food and agriculture organisation has said Myanmar needs 243 million dollars to buy rice seed and fertilisers to ensure it can plant its June rice harvest and start to feed itself again. -- AFP
|
