Myanmar

Government accepts UN food aid, as NGOs warn of looming health crisis

Article published on the 2008-05-07 Latest update 2008-05-09 06:37 TU

Yangon after the cyclone, 5 May
(Photo: Reuters)

Myanmar's junta has come under pressure from its Southeast Asian neighbours on Thursday to open its borders to international aid as a US diplomat estimates that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis could top 100,000. The military government has approved a UN flight to take emergency supplies to the survivors of cyclone Nargis, which is believed to have killed more than 100,000 people and made millions homeless. Health experts say that diseases ranging from tetanus to diarrhea are likely to run riot.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chief Surin Pitsuwan said the junta needed to work with the international aid community "before it's too late."

"It's very much a matter of urgency," he said.

Surin said regional governments, working through the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat, were "trying to communicate the sense of urgency and the flood of goodwill that is being offered."

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said that a flight bearing 25 tonnes of food will leave Italy today, after the military government, which is notoriously suspicious of foreign intervention, agreed to accept it.

Meanwhile, the UN's World Food Programme says that it has begun to airlift 36 tonnes of hugh-energy biscuits from Bangladesh, whose government is sending a plane-load of medicine, food and clothes.

Aid agencies warn that disease is likely to spread though the flood waters.

"They are facing respiratory infections, diarrhea - mainly for the children - and a lot of skin diseases, as well," Dr Françoise Sivignon of Paris-based Médécins du Monde told RFI. "They need everything, including shelter, of course, but basic food, as well."

International SOS, an organisation with an office in Yangon, says that flooding and broken pipes mean sewage, toxic chemicals and groundwater have leaked into the supply, rasing the risk of tetanus, salmonella, typhoid, malaria and many other illnesses.

Reports from Labutta, at the mouth of the Irrawaddy river, say that tens of thousands of survivors are flocking to the town, even though it was completely submerged during the flooding.

The Save the Children NGO believes that the town of Pyinkaya, also in the Irriwaddy delta, has had no supplies of food or clean water for its 150,000 inhabitants since the storm hit.