A BREAKTHROUGH appeared within reach yesterday in the stand-off between the international community and the Burmese regime over allowing foreign aid for cyclone survivors into the country, IAN MACKINNONreports.
Lord Malloch-Brown, a British foreign minister, said after talks with Burmese ministers in Rangoon that there had been a turning point that would shortly enable the delivery of more aid, with Asian countries taking the lead.
The glimmer of hope two weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck, killing an estimated 128,000, came as the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, Sir John Holmes, arrived in Rangoon last night for three-days of talks on speeding up the dismally slow aid effort hamstrung by Burma's generals.
Sir John is due to tour the worst hit areas in the Irrawaddy delta ahead of the arrival of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in Burma later this week to coincide with a donor pledging conference in Bangkok planned for Saturday.
The Save the Children charity says that some children under five may have died from starvation as they await relief, and thousands more could be at risk in the coming weeks.
The latest UN assessment of the situation in the Irrawaddy delta estimates that just 20 per cent of as many as 2.5 million people gravely affected by the disaster have so far been reached with aid.
The official toll of dead and missing has risen to 133,653, while the number of injured has leapt from 1,403 to 19,359. Burma's leader, GenThan Shwe, made his first visit to cyclone survivors in camps on the outskirts of Rangoon.
Relief supplies are only trickling into the country. The UN World Food Programme said it had distributed enough rice, beans and high energy biscuits for 212,000 people, about a third of those thought to be in the most desperate need.
The UN and aid agencies reiterated their alarm that the amounts of aid were insufficient and too slow in arriving even as the diplomatic dance with the generals goes on and the warnings of a second man-made catastrophe grow more urgent.
Amid concern about a "second wave" of death brought about by hunger and disease, Save the Children warned that thousands of the most vulnerable children under five could starve to death in the coming weeks. It identified 30,000 malnourished youngsters in the Irrawaddy delta even before the cyclone.
"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid many of these children will not survive much longer," said Save the Children.
Burmese charities supported by Christian Aid have already discovered children and the elderly dying in villages in the Irrawaddy delta that have received no aid or help to provide clean water, 15 days into the tragedy.
Lord Malloch-Brown said yesterday he was "confident" that the Burmese had agreed to a diplomatic compromise to get relief in under the supervision of Asian countries, rather than the western countries that the regime views with suspicion.
"We found a middle ground," he said. "Through the leadership of Asian neighbours, India and China and Asean [the Association of South-east Asian Nations] countries like Thailand and Indonesia, in partnership with the UN, there is now a leadership which the Burmese can accept and we can work through to deliver aid." - ( Guardian service)