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Myanmar cyclone: starvation warning for Burma children

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Thousands of children in Myanmar will starve to death in two to three weeks unless food is rushed to them, an aid agency warned Sunday as an increasingly angry international community pleaded for approval to mount an all-out effort to help cyclone survivors.

The United Nations said Myanmar's isolationist ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies.
A U.N. situation report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people. But the regime insists it will handle distribution to victims of Cyclone Nargis.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been unable to sway Myanmar's leaders by telephone, said he was sending U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes to Myanmar this weekend.
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9 responses // Myanmar cyclone: starvation warning for Burma children

  • http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/mtvaction.html
    The UK council for Burma has a pre-written letter which you can send to Ban Ki-moon to urge him to take strong action on the crisis.

    In an interview with the BBC a spokesman said that the UN should force their way ashore with all of the relief that they have waiting to be delivered, and that the UN should take on the responsibility of distribution.

    Do you agree?
    phillyharper
  • Natural disasters are just so tragic, but when you read that it is being made all the worse by incompetent and paranoid leadership, it defies belief.
    emmahill
  • Thanks for the link phillyharper, and I agree. If something doesn't change soon I think we have to consider delivering aid without the Juntas approval. It would almost be a humanitarian crime not too. We would intervene if the people were being murdered by violent means, this is no different.
    Pardon
  • There has been much of this talk of forcing Burma to accept aid and assistance, as covered on all the major news outlets. Isn't this more unrealistic expectation on the UN? No wonder the organisation has so regularly been coloured as ineffective. How do you force someone to accept aid - militarily? Has anyone thought this through? Sounds more like Bush in Iraq than the UN to me.
    fernandez_is_go
  • Something more has to be done, I agree, but the use of force, if you follow it through, will inevitably mean deaths. How many depends on how strongly the Burmese government resists.

    I would suggest maximum effort is applied through personal diplomacy, from every country and organization that can manage it.
    misseemarple
  • We need to step in before some kind of plague or disease comes up and it becomes almost impossible to contain. It could infect the aid workers and that is the last people we need sick. Something needs done now, not in a week.
    dmass5
  • The international community should not wait another day. The junta's response to this disaster has been reprehensible and the rest of the world needs to step up. Now. We should send in armed relief workers asap.

    The problem is....is George Bush even aware of this? Has anyone interrupted his golf game or his daughter's wedding to that frat boy, to let him know that thousands are dying over in Burma?
    kanyoufly
  • I feel desperately that I want everyone just to invade and take aid to the people and give them shelter. It feels so wrong to stand by and wait while people are getting sick and cold, and distressed - ior dying.
    I don't think we people of the world should create another war, but if we did, we would have to go in so full strength that they would just have to surrender; no dragging it out with a trickle of troups like happend in Vietnam. However that is my emotional side and my head says we have to be politic about this. It is so very hard to respect the junta as a valid political body. The quesiton is, how can we guarantee there are more people saved than hurt if we go in? How can we guarantee we don't do more physical and psychological damage by invading? I don't know the answer.
    carlina
  • What's China's stance on this situation?. They have a lot of trouble of their own right now, but I would imagine they would not like it too much if the UN went into Burma. But then they have enough power to bear on Burma themselves. Wouldn't it be great if the UN and China worked together on this one.
    Is China having trouble accepting aid from the rest of the world I wonder? What could be the motive of a junta such as Burma to risk losing millions of citizens? It just doesn't make sense. Some how it feels as though there is alzheimers in the Junta.
    rookanger

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