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'I think we're potentially at a turning point, but like all turning points in Burma, the corner will have a few S bends in it,' said Mr Malloch-Brown (above). -- PHOTO: AFP
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YANGON - THE UN's top disaster official John Holmes arrived in Myanmar on Sunday on a three-day visit to convince the reluctant regime to open the doors to a massive relief effort after Cyclone Nargis.
He arrived just hours after the latest UN emergency report on the country - where around two million survivors are lacking food and water more than two weeks after the storm hit - said needs were still critical.
The international community has been turning up the pressure on the regime over its handling of the tragedy, which has left nearly 134,000 people dead or missing since tearing into the southern Irrawaddy Delta on May 2.
Mr Holmes was carrying a letter from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the head of the junta, Than Shwe. The UN chief has made repeated calls to the military leader but failed to reach him since the tragedy.
The secretive military rulers have been letting more foreign experts into the country in recent days, but aid groups say it is not enough to ensure that victims get the food, water, shelter and medical care they need.
Pressure mounts on Myanmar to open up to aid
Aid was trickling in on Sunday to an estimated 2.5 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta as foreign envoys tried to get the junta to open up to more international relief.
The World Food Programme (WFP), which is leading the outside emergency food effort, said it had managed to get rice and beans to 212,000 of the 750,000 people it thinks are most in need after the May 2 storm, which has left at least 134,00 dead or missing.
'It's not enough. There are a very large number of people who are yet to receive any kind of assistance and that's what's keeping out teams working round the clock,' WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said in Bangkok.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost - a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighbouring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
With the reclusive military government still refusing to open its doors to a large-scale tsunami-style aid operation, disaster experts say Nargis' body count could still climb dramatically.
To try to offset such a prospect, a steady stream of diplomats have been flying in to the former Burma to plead for more access for aid workers and flights.
Pressure is also mounting at the United Nations, where France has accused the junta of being on the verge of a crime against humanity. On Saturday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the generals' sluggish response as 'inhuman'.
Myanmar children could starve within weeks: group
A leading aid group warned on Sunday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon.
Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger 'within two to three weeks'.
'We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger,' said Ms Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
'When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days. Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food.'
Delta tours
Confident they are handling the crisis properly, the generals took diplomats on a tour on Saturday of the delta, where 2.5 million people are now clinging to survival in an area of inundated swamp the size of Austria They appeared to have worked hard to keep the diplomats away from the destitute.
'The purpose was to show the situation was under control. Where we were they didn't hide anything but of course they selected the places we visited,' Mr Bernard Delpuech, head of the European Commission Humanitarian Office in Yangon, said.
Three days ago, columns of men, women and children stretched for miles alongside the road near the delta town of Kunyangon, begging in the mud and rain for scraps of food or clothing from the occasional passing aid vehicle.
Thousands of other refugees are crammed into monasteries and schools, fed and watered by local volunteers and private donors who have sent in clothes, biscuits, dried noodles and rice.
Buddhist monks play a major role.
'We have distributed over 100 tonnes of rice and more than 3,000 tin roofing sheets so far. We are trying to distribute more,' said the Venerable Nyanissara, a 73-year-old patriarch running a makeshift relief centre south of Yangon.
The reluctance of the military, which has ruled unchecked for the last 46 years, to allow an influx of foreign aid workers appears to stem from fear that it might loosen its vice-like grip on power.
In a rare acknowledgement of criticism, state television said on Saturday outside media reports suggesting the government was not doing enough were inaccurate.
The army, navy and air force had already delivered extensive aid, and tens of millions of dollars had been spent, state television said.
In a rare sign of agreement with international aid agencies, the junta on Friday night sharply raised its official toll from the disaster to 77,738 dead and 55,917 missing. -- REUTERS
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