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UN chief calls emergency talks on Myanmar
2008-05-14
UN chief Ban Ki-moon Wednesday called an emergency meeting on Myanmar's aid crisis, as the junta refused to open up to a full-scale relief effort despite grave fears for two million survivors. The secretary-general said he would call in representatives of several countries later Wednesday to discuss a strategy for escalating the humanitarian response in Myanmar, with relief groups warning they are running out of time. Despite condemnation, Myanmar's military government tightened access to the cyclone disaster zone Wednesday, turning back foreigners and rejecting new pleas from Thailand's premier Samak Sundaravej. After a brief visit to Myanmar aimed at nudging the regime to accept a comprehensive disaster response, Samak said it had again ruled out allowing in foreign experts. "They insisted they can take care of their people and their country. They can manage by themselves," he said after the meeting with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein. Ban said too much time had been spent on trying to deliver supplies and obtain visas for international aid workers whose expertise is urgently needed to bring help to the remote and flooded disaster zone in the south. "Even though the Myanmar government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time it's far, far too short," he said in New York. "The magnitude of this situation requires much more mobilisation of resources and aid workers," he said. Ban said the operation to help the Myanmar people was entering its "second stage", reflecting views that almost two weeks after the storm hit, it may already be too late for many sick and hungry victims who have got little aid from a government that insists it can manage the catastrophe alone. United Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes urged Myanmar's rulers to make a "radical change" and allow in foreign aid workers to avoid a second wave of cyclone deaths. "The biggest problem we have at the moment is that international humanitarian staff are not being allowed down into the affected area in the delta," Holmes said. A top European Union humanitarian official said there was now a risk of famine, after the May 3 storm destroyed rice stocks in a main farming region in one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries. "If there is a lack of access, more people will die," Louis Michel, the EU's humanitarian aid commissioner, said in an interview with AFP TV in Bangkok before heading to Myanmar for talks with the ruling generals. "The fact that it is the rice bowl of Myanmar (that has been hit) and that all the stocks of rice have been destroyed -- there is a risk of a catastrophe at the level of famine," he said. State media raised the death toll to 38,491 with 27,838 missing Wednesday, but British minister Douglas Alexander said reports from agencies on the ground indicated the number of dead and missing could rise above 200,000. Aid groups say that while tonnes of aid are flowing in -- five more US relief flights arrived Wednesday -- a lack of infrastructure and heavy equipment means not nearly enough is reaching the southern Irrawaddy Delta. Despite the urgent need for food, clean water and shelter, the military, which has ruled the country with an iron hand for almost half a century, appears to fear that any outside influence could weaken its tight control. Foreign reporters said they were turned back at roadblocks on the way to the delta Wednesday, and even citizens were not allowed in if they could not provide names and addresses of people they said they were visiting. Reporters who have made it to the delta relate scenes of almost unimaginable misery and despair. Untold numbers of corpses have been left rotting in ground that is little more than a saltwater swamp, thousands of hungry people are begging in the streets, and most rice stocks are soaked and ruined. "The rice we got is already wet from the rain. It's not very good to eat," 22-year-old Thin Thin told a reporter who made it to one of the remote delta regions. Compounding the misery, heavy rain is forecast to hit the Irrawaddy Delta over the coming days -- a nightmare scenario for the cyclone-stricken country, the United Nations and Red Cross warned on Wednesday. "The arrival of the rains will only exacerbate an already dramatic situation in the flooded areas, both for survivors and for aid personnel," said Elisabeth Byrs of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Geneva.
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