Kids may starve to death

2008-05-18 21:50

Yangon - Thousands of children in Myanmar could die of starvation within two or three weeks, a charity said on Sunday.

Save the Children UK said its research showed that an estimated 30 000 children under the age of five in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta were already acutely malnourished when Cyclone Nargis tore through the region and that several thousand among them were now at risk of death.

"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid, many of these children will not survive much longer," the charity said in a statement.

"Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."

Humanitarian aid agency Action Against Hunger described the situation in the Bogale region of Myanmar where it was working as "extremely alarming", saying the priority of every survivor they surveyed there was to find enough food to eat.

Aid rejected

"All day long, people are looking for food and for a way of cooking the food they find," the group said in a statement.

"For over 15 days, the survivors have mainly been feeding themselves with wild fruits and vegetables and molded rice, which they are trying to dry."

The group said the price of rice had quadrupled since the cyclone struck the country and that some people were already starving.

More than two weeks after the cyclone devastated Myanmar aid agencies have chafed at government restrictions preventing them from reaching the worse-hit areas.

Shortage of safe water

Heavy rains since the storm also stymied relief efforts, and relief agencies said inhabitants were suffering from a shortage of safe water and proper sanitation. The United Nations and others said that lack of proper aid could dramatically worsen the crisis.

Save the Children said Myanmar's long-term food security had been jeopardised by the cyclone because many farmers were prevented from sowing seeds for the harvest, while Action Against Hunger said most fishermen had lost all their fishing equipment.

- AP