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Wednesday, 03 December 2008

Burma opens to foreign aid as fears of famine grow

19/05/2008 10:10:00 PM.  | 

Cyclone-stricken Burma will accept foreign medical workers to help with the relief effort, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said today.

"Myanmar (Burma) will accept international assistance," Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo told a news conference.

Burma's government had estimated losses from the disaster at more than $US10 billion ($A10.5 billion), Yeo told journalists after meeting with ASEAN counterparts, including Burma's Nyan Win.

Burma also agreed at today's emergency ASEAN meeting in Singapore to let its Southeast Asian neighbours coordinate foreign assistance for cyclone victims, Yeo said.

Around 70 per cent of Burma's hungry cyclone survivors are being forced from their villages as they remain without UN food aid two weeks after the disaster.

Marcus Prior, spokesman from the UN's World Food Program, said that while 750,000 survivors were in desperate need of food, only 250,000 people had received a two-week ration of rice.

"I would say that now we are just over 30 per cent," he said, labelling the response so far "slow and insufficient."

While supplies have been arriving in Rangoon, relief agencies say the junta's insistence so far that they can deliver all the aid themselves - despite a lack of equipment - has created a bottle-neck in getting food to the most needy.

Burma is part of the regional grouping.

COMMENTS

Monday, 19 May 2008

Burma opens "slow and insufficient" bottle-neck.

Posted by: james stack,

 
 

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