BANGKOK —
The United
Nations suspended relief supplies to Myanmar
on Friday after the military government seized the food and equipment it had
already sent into the country.
Earlier, in
a statement, Myanmar’s military junta said it was willing to receive disaster
relief from the outside world but would not welcome outside relief workers.
Nearly one week after a devastating cyclone,
supplies into the country were still being delayed and aid experts were being
turned back as they arrived at the airport.
In the
statement, the government said it would distribute international relief
supplies itself.
Paul Risley,
a spokesman for the United Nations World
Food Program, said, "all the food aid
and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." He said the
World Food Program was suspending the few flights that the Myanmar authorities
had so far allowed to enter the country until the matter was resolved.
Myanmar said
it had turned back one relief flight because, in addition to disaster relief
supplies, it carried disaster assessment experts and an unauthorized media
group.
"Myanmar
is not in a position to receive rescue and information teams from foreign
countries at the moment," the statement, from the Foreign Ministry, said.
“But at present Myanmar is giving priority to receiving relief aid and
distributing them to the storm-hit regions with its own resources."
The first of
two major international aid shipments arrived Thursday by aircraft from the
United Nations World Food Program, carrying high energy biscuits, water
containers, food and plastic sheets.
But two of
four United Nations experts who flew in on Friday were turned back at the
airport for unknown reasons, said John Holmes, a relief coordinator for the
United Nations.
Altogether,
by one count, 11 chartered planes with relief supplies have landed in Myanmar,
a tiny amount for a disaster that the United Nations said has affected 1.5
million people.
By the
government’s official count, 22,500 people have died, but Shari Villarosa, the
top American diplomat in Myanmar, said the number could reach 100,000 if help
was not prompt and the humanitarian situation worsened.
One United
Nations official said he had never seen delays like this before in delivering
relief supplies and aid officials. In Indonesia after the tsunami in 2004, he
said, an air bridge of daily flights was established within 48 hours.
"The
frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in
modern humanitarian relief efforts," said the official, Paul Risley, a
spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, in Bangkok. "It’s
astonishing."
He said his
agency alone had submitted 10 visa applications for relief workers but that
none had been approved before consulates shut down for the weekend.
"We
strongly urge the government of Myanmar to process these visa applications as
quickly as possible, including working over the weekend," he said.
In Thailand,
in addition to aid workers United States Air Force transport aircraft and
helicopters waited at an airport for permission to enter Myanmar with supplies.
"We are
in a long line of nations who are ready, willing and able to help, but also, of
course, in a long line of nations the Burmese don’t trust," said United
States Ambassador Eric John.
He said that
on Thursday Myanmar appeared to agree to accept American aid, but then said it
would not accept the aid. He said it was not clear whether there had been a
misunderstanding or a change of mind.
Also in
Bangkok it appeared that Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej had changed his mind
about visiting Myanmar to discuss the relief operation, canceling the trip
because the leaders would not welcome aid workers.
"After
they said today they would not welcome foreign staff, there is no point of me
going there," Mr. Samak said.
In New York,
United Nations officials all but demanded Thursday that the government open its
doors.
"The
situation is profoundly worrying," said Mr. Holmes, the United Nations
official in charge of the relief effort, speaking in unusually candid language
for a diplomat. "They have simply not facilitated access in the way we
have a right to expect."
Mr. Holmes’s
predecessor in that job, Jan
Egeland, said, "children are going to die from diarrhea because
of this government’s inaction."
The cyclone
struck a country particularly ill-equipped to deal with a public health
catastrophe, said Dr. Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins who has
worked extensively in Myanmar.
Under the
military government, the public health infrastructure has been crumbling for
decades, he said.
Malaria is
already endemic, and many people with AIDS and tuberculosis are going
untreated, he said. "We don’t think the blood supply is safe or adequately
screened," Dr. Beyrer said, adding that people injured in the storm and in
need of transfusions face the risk of infection and blood-borne diseases.
In Geneva on
Friday, a United Nations spokeswoman said the United Nations was putting
together an urgent appeal for funding that would cover its relief efforts in
Myanmar over the next six months.