Operation Burma begins
13/5/08
The US’s first airlift landed in Burma last night after prolonged negotiations with the military junta that has restricted international efforts to help up to two million cyclone survivors at risk of disease and starvation. In what was seen as a huge concession by the junta, the unarmed US military C-130 cargo plane, packed with supplies, flew from the Thai air force base of Utapao into Rangoon. Two more air shipments were scheduled to land today. Relief workers who remain prohibited from entering Burma warned it could take weeks to reach many cyclone victims because of the nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Such a delay will increase the number of people at risk and raise the possibility of unrest, they said.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23688068-2703,00.html
Refugees flee disaster zone
Aung Hla Tun; 12/5/08
Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta yesterday in search of food, water and medicine. The human tide flowed as aid workers warned that up to 1.5 million faced death if emergency supplies did not get through soon. Buddhist temples and schools in towns on the outskirts of the storm’s trail of destruction were now makeshift refugee centres for women, children and the elderly as millions of dollars in emergency aid was stalled on airport tarmacs pending permission to enter the country and hundreds of relief specialists were waiting for visas.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23681111-25837,00.html
Army stops locals trying to give aid
13/5/08
When one of Burma’s best-known movie stars, Kyaw Dhyu, travelled through the Irrawaddy Delta in recent days to deliver aid to the victims of the May 3 cyclone, a military patrol stopped him as he was handing out bags of rice. “The officer told him, ‘You cannot give directly to the people,”‘ said Tin Win, the village headman of the stricken city of Dedaye, who had been counting on the rice to feed 260 refugees who sleep in a large Buddhist prayer hall.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/army-stops-locals-trying-to-give-aid/2008/05/12/1210444338564.html
Tags: Burma, Environment, Human Rights