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BANGKOK — Isolated from the outside world by a military regime ruthlessly determined to control the flow of international aid, and battered again by torrential downpours, the stranded victims of Myanmar's cyclone disaster are succumbing to hunger, disease and despair.
Two weeks after a cyclone ravaged Myanmar's low-lying Irrawaddy delta region, killing tens of thousands, international aid is merely trickling into the disaster zone. Planeloads of aid have arrived in the largest city of Rangoon, but the regime has banned foreign relief workers from distributing the shipments, leaving the job to teams of inexperienced local volunteers and the military.
This lacklustre effort has utterly failed to relieve the suffering of hundreds of thousands of increasingly weak survivors, many of them children.
In the storm-struck town of Kunyangon, about 100 kilometres southwest of Rangoon, men, women and children stood in the mud and rain, their hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle.
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“The situation has worsened in just two days,” one shocked aid volunteer said as crowds of children mobbed his vehicle, their hands reaching through the window for scraps of food.
Few refugee settlements have been erected, and, as a result, bands of homeless people are wandering the soaked countryside in search of shelter or dry land. They're camping in monasteries and schools, which have become breeding grounds for water-borne diseases.
On Friday, Myanmar's state television increased the official death toll to almost 78,000, with another 56,000 missing. For more than a week, the regime claimed the cyclone took between 30,000 and 40,000 lives.
International relief agencies and the United Nations claim the death toll could reach 200,000. They estimate that up to 2.5 million people were affected by the cyclone.
Foreign aid groups say children are the most vulnerable. Unicef Canada has estimated that as many as one million children risk disease if proper aid and shelter isn't delivered soon.
Despite widespread evidence of a mounting tragedy, it appears Myanmar's ruling military has no intention of budging from its decision to ban outside aid workers.
One Western diplomat said Myanmar's military and local volunteers don't have the equipment or know-how to mount a massive disaster response.
“These are very insular, very suspicious people, chosen for their ability to control [the population], not help them,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some international aid groups have been heartened that Myanmar has at least permitted shipments of foreign aid, but the diplomat said the relief response was too little, too late.
He said the government's sole motivation since the cyclone hit May 2 has been to maintain the military's vice-like grip over the country.
“This regime is not driven by the well-being of its people,” he said. “Not a day goes by when you don't hear something that makes your jaw drop in shock and horror.”
While some aid is getting to the delta disaster zone, rainy weather and washed-out roads are slowing vehicles, he said. What's needed, he added, are helicopters, boats and heavy equipment to properly deliver large quantities of water, food and shelter materials.
Instead, the military has increased checkpoints outside Rangoon. Soldiers are stopping vehicles to search for cameras and non-authorized aid workers.
“Hope is in extremely short supply,” he said.
Once a rich British colony known as Burma, Myanmar is now at risk of famine after the cyclone wiped out vast swathes of the country's rice-growing delta region.
Despite the humanitarian emergency, the government has been obsessed with the results of a national referendum on a new constitution. This week, with large parts of the country still under water and tens of thousands of people unaccounted for, the government claimed victory in the poll conducted last weekend.
It said the vote, the first here since 1990, was a step on the road to democracy, but critics say it will simply tighten the military's grip on power. Tomorrow, John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, will go to Myanmar to try to persuade junta leaders to grant more access for UN relief workers and increase aid efforts, said Amanda Pitt, a UN spokeswoman in Bangkok.
In addition, some foreign diplomats have been invited by the regime to visit the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta today, said Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Rangoon. She did not provide details.
It is not clear how much access the diplomats will have outside the conducted tour. Still, it will be the first time diplomats will be seeing first hand the effects of the cyclone as well as the highly criticized relief delivery effort by the government.
Lack of clean water will be “the biggest killer” in the Irrawaddy delta in the coming days, Thomas Gurtner, the head of operations for the International Red Cross, told the Associated Press in Geneva.
“To be able to provide clean water to hundreds of thousands of people stranded in the delta requires a major operation, which we have neither the material, the logistical nor the staff capacity to do,” he said.
Unicef said its fourth flight into Myanmar, scheduled for today, would deliver several tonnes of food for malnourished children. Radio broadcasts are trying to help lost children find their families, it said.
Meanwhile, a Canadian military C-17 plane, containing shelter tools, was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok this morning. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent is to co-ordinate delivery of this aid.
With a report from Reuters
