UN releases Myanmar aid
2008-05-08 17:05
Geneva - The United Nations said on Thursday it will give $10m in immediate aid to cyclone-hit Myanmar and that its disaster experts have finally been granted visas to enter the country.
The UN will "immediately release a first tranche of at least $10m from its Central Emergency Response Fund" to help relief efforts in the stricken country, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Byrs said UN disaster management experts have now received permission to travel to Myanmar some six days after the devastating cyclone struck.
The four experts are expected to arrive in the main city of Yangon on Thursday, while a fifth non-Asian expert is still awaiting his visa, Byrs added.
The reluctance of Myanmar's military rulers to allow foreign experts and dedicated relief flights into the country has caused international frustration. Foreign leaders say it has compounded the misery for a million people homeless and short of food and water.
UNICEF appeals for $8.2m
UN agencies have asked Myanmar to allow in around 100 experts to help cyclone relief efforts, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Thursday.
UNICEF has also launched an appeal for $8.2m to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of desperate survivors at risk from disease in the cyclone's wake.
A UNICEF-chartered plane carrying supplies is set to leave for the Thai capital Bangkok from Copenhagen later on Thursday, and the aid should then be ferried to Yangon by a Thai Airways flight on Friday.
"The scope of the catastrophe needs a much bigger answer than we are delivering," Vu Thi said, adding: "We're going to discover more tragedies in the coming days."
UNICEF said it has already distributed pre-positioned emergency supplies within Myanmar, including family health kits with medicine for 155 000 people, water purification tablets, tarpaulins, mosquito nets and jerry cans.
Women and children are vulnerable
It warned that women and children in the affected areas are particularly vulnerable to hunger, disease and trauma, and require urgent assistance to survive.
Without transport and fuel, aid arriving piecemeal on commercial flights into Yangon cannot be distributed effectively in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta region in southern Myanmar, which was submerged in the cyclone.
Even if they get permission to launch a full-scale relief effort, aid organisations face tremendous logistical problems including flooded roads, scarce fuel supplies, and a shortage of boats as many were destroyed in the storm.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have led calls for Myanmar's generals, who deeply mistrust most of the outside world, to admit international disaster relief.
"It should be a simple matter. It's not a matter of politics. It's a matter of a humanitarian crisis," Rice said.