Over 133,000 people dead or missing in Myanmar; Int'l pressure on junta intensifies

UNICEF said 3,000 schools were wiped out by the cyclone, leaving 500,000 children without classrooms and at least two suspected traffickers have been arrested for trying to recruit children at a campsite.

Media reports also claim that local military units in Myanmar are waylaying trucks of food, blankets and water, leading to the junta issuing an edict in state-run newspapers on Friday saying legal action would be taken against anybody found hoarding or selling relief supplies.

Despite the appalling condition of the cyclone survivors and incessant rainfall in Irrawaddy Delta region making relief efforts more difficult, the military junta in Myanmar has refused to open its borders immediately to allow foreign experts to direct relief efforts despite the rising death toll and till now, most foreign aid is only getting into the country in small quantities.

Concerned that inaccessibility to necessary relief may claim over half a million lives, France, Great Britain, Germany and Denmark are convinced that the international community must help the victims of the cyclone, even if they have to do so without the permission of the country's ruling military government.

France's UN ambassador has gone as far to say that the junta was on the verge of a "crime against humanity" if it continued its virtual ban on foreign journalists and restrictions on movement for most international aid workers, making independent assessments of the situation difficult.

In the US, lawmakers have also urged President George W. Bush on Friday to consider "humanitarian intervention" in the cyclone-hit country.