A UN humanitarian envoy is due in Burma to try to persuade the ruling junta to grant more access to UN workers to help with the cyclone relief efforts. John Holmes will carry a letter from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Burma's leader, Than Shwe, who has refused to answer Mr Ban's calls. Burma says some 78,000 people have died and 56,000 are missing since Cyclone Nargis hit the country on 2 May. Burma has so far been refusing most offers of international aid. However, a team of 50 Indian medical personnel has been given permission to fly into Burma, equipped with medical supplies. Meanwhile, a UK-based charity says young children may already be dying of starvation. Save the Children estimates that 30,000 children under the age of five in the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta were already "acutely malnourished" before the cyclone struck. It says that thousands of children will die within several weeks unless food reaches them soon. 'Show' visit On Saturday, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned Burma's government for not allowing international aid to reach the cyclone victims.
Mr Brown told the BBC that a natural disaster had been turned into a "man-made catastrophe" because of the negligence of the ruling generals. He said their actions since the cyclone amounted to inhuman treatment. France has said Burma is on the verge of committing a crime against humanity. Burma has refused to allow in French and US aid ships which are waiting off the coast. On Saturday, Burma took foreign diplomats on a helicopter tour of the Irrawaddy Delta. But Shari Villarosa, the top US diplomat in Burma, dismissed the visit as a "show". However, Bernard Delpuech, head of the European Commission Humanitarian Office in Rangoon, said the trip had at least shown "the magnitude of the devastation". Asian role Meanwhile, UK Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown told the BBC that the international community was trying to organise a team of Asian and UN aid workers in the hope this will be more acceptable to Burma's rulers.
He said the idea of a mixed relief team was a "last best effort to try and meet the anxieties and paranoia... of the regime". Lord Malloch-Brown travelled to Burma on Saturday and met aid workers and UN officials, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) is due to meet on Monday, with plans for an aid donors' conference likely to be discussed. |
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