Frustrated aid agencies said yesterday they were still being denied permission to enter Burma and help desperate survivors of a cyclone that has left millions homeless and without food and water.Five days after the storm hit, leaving more than 60,000 people dead or missing, pledges of cash, supplies and assistance are pouring in from around the world.
But little is reaching the reclusive country, and experts are warning of a catastrophe if they are not allowed in to direct the relief effort.
The junta has insisted that foreign aid workers must "negotiate" their entry to the country. The United Nations said the regime has finally appointed a minister to review visa applications by aid workers, but that no permits have yet been issued.
Aid experts said while some agencies were already operating in the country, disaster relief specialists were desperately needed to ensure supplies made it to the worst-affected areas.
"One team came across thousands of people killed in one township, with piles of rotting bodies lying on the ground," said Andrew Kirkwood of Save the Children, one of the few foreign aid groups allowed to operate inside Burma.
Both Unicef and Doctors Without Borders said they have staff poised to be deployed as soon as they are given the green light.
In New York, Rashid Khalikov of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, pleaded with the junta to open its borders.
"We really hope it will happen very quickly. We applied for vi
sas. We have not got the visas," he said.The UN said an aid flight bearing emergency supplies and accompanied by its disaster experts had won approval to travel from Italy, and Singapore, India and Bangladesh also sent planes loaded with relief materials.
Unicef said it was distributing aid, but added many coastal areas remained cut off from food supplies because of flooding and road damage. Two US Navy ships are standing by off Thailand awaiting the green light - which may never come.
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