Aid Blocked in Burma
2/27/2009 11:09:00 AM
ZHANG:
A human rights group says that authorities in Burma deliberately blocked the distribution of humanitarian aid after cyclone Nargis. The storm that killed 140,000 people and devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region last May.
STORY:
Aid officials say that cyclone survivors continue to suffer in the worst hit areas of the Irrawaddy Delta.
They had tried to get aid workers and supplies into here after the cyclone but were turned away by Burma’s military junta.
A report released by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Bangkok reveals that some cyclone survivors have been victims of human rights abuses.
[Chris Beyrer, John Hopkins Bloomberg]:
"Virtually everybody we interviewed reported forced relocation. Forced labor was also common. Forced child labor was less common but also reported with some frequency. The confiscation, theft and re-sell of relief aid was ubiquitous. That was appeared to be very much standard operating procedure throughout the area."
And when the aid finally started trickling in much of it was diverted, in some cases with the help of the donor.
[Chris Beyrer, John Hopkins Bloomberg]:
"What is surprising is that it has happened with much greater involvement of the international community in one of these areas."
The report titled "After the Storm: Voices from the Delta," calls for the U.N. Commission of Inquiry to investigate claims of human rights abuses.
It also calls for the military junta to immediately release all relief workers that were arrested.
[Chris Beyrer, John Hopkins Bloomberg]:
"We clearly need there to be a more thorough investigation that needs to be independent. That's one of the things we are calling for. And we would hope that ASEAN and the other U.N. international NGOs would support that and would want to optimise the protection of vulnerable people, of women and children in particular in the next phases of the cyclone response."
But life is still tough on the Irrawaddy Delta, 220km southwest of capital Yangon. Many here still live in makeshift housing and agricultural activity has not recovered due to the lack of farming equipment, buffaloes and paddy.
