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Humanitarian Assistance Arriving in Myanmar

Humanitarian Assistance Arriving in Myanmar

May-6-08 07:21 pm

Red Cross Workers in Yangon
Myanmar News Agency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The New York Times reports this afternoon:

The death toll from a powerful cyclone that struck Myanmar three days ago rose to 22,500 Tuesday, with more than 40,000 people still missing, the government said, and foreign governments and aid organizations began mobilizing for a major relief operation.

The Times explains:

At a news conference in Yangon, the minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, said 41,000 people were still missing in the aftermath of the cyclone, which triggered a surge of water inland from the sea.

“More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,” he said, in the first official description of the destruction. “The wave was up to 12 feet high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages. They did not have anywhere to flee.”

A spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program said that as many as one million people might have lost their homes and that some villages were almost totally destroyed.

On relief efforts, the Times notes:

International aid groups were assessing the country’s needs and preparing shipments of food and materials that included roofing materials, plastic tarpaulins, mosquito nets, water purifying tablets and medication to prevent outbreaks of cholera and malaria.

“We hope to fly in more assistance within the next 48 hours,” said the World Food Program spokesman, Paul Risley, speaking in Bangkok. “The challenge will be getting to the affected areas with road blockages everywhere.”

A military transport plane was scheduled to arrive Tuesday with emergency aid from Thailand.

A number of other nations and organizations, including the United Nations, the European Commission and Myanmar’s powerful neighbor China, said they were prepared to deliver aid.

In Geneva, a United Nations spokeswoman, Elisabeth Byrs, said that Myanmar had said it would welcome aid supplies and that disaster assessment officials were now awaiting visas to enter the country.

“Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself,” said Caryl Stern, who heads the United Nations Children’s Fund in the United States.

The organization, UNICEF, said it had sent five assessment teams into affected areas and that relief supplies were being prepared for delivery.

The United States, which has led a drive for economic sanctions against Myanmar’s repressive regime, said it would also provide aid, but only if an American disaster team was invited into the country.

“We’re prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation,” President George W. Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office. Bush was signing legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy advocate who has long been under house arrest in Myanmar.

The policy was presented by the first lady, Laura Bush, , along with a lecture to the junta about human rights and disaster relief.

Tags: humanitarian assistance human rights

About the editor:

Anthony Clark Arend

Professor

Commentary and analysis at the intersection of international law and politics.

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