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

The government claims the cyclone left 77,738 dead and 55,917 missing, but given the military junta's nature of secrecy and control over the media, the international community suspects the actual figure could be much higher.

In fact, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimated Wednesday that the total death toll might be between 68,833 and 127,990. The United Nations (UN) has said more than 100,000 may have died.

While the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal Friday for $50.8 million for the devastated region, the UN said it was organizing an emergency summit in Asia to coordinate global efforts in rushing aid to cyclone victims in Myanmar.

The UN and the Red Cross said 1.6-2.5 million people are in urgent need of aid, including food, water, blankets, mosquito nets, tarpaulins, medicines and tents and if the aid is not reached on time, epidemic of gigantic proportion may break out. Already relief officials in Burma are saying water-borne diseases like cholera have broken out and other diseases like malaria, dengue, typhoid, diarrhea, dysentery, tuberculosis and skin infections may add to the death toll due to lack of sufficient medical aid.

Many fear than children and women in crowded relief camps will become vulnerable to prostitution and human trafficking unless proper measures are taken.

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.

The international community has also urged China to increase pressure on its communist ally. However, China, itself recovering from a massive earthquake which has devastated the Sichuan Province, has refused to do so.

"We should take full consideration of Myanmar's willingness and sovereignty," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

Winds of up to 120 miles per hour tore through the city of Rangoon, the Irrawaddy Delta and southern Arakan State on the evening of May 2 and continued its ravage, uprooting trees, pummeling buildings and ripping up power lines, till late evening on Saturday.

Till date, many of the city's 7 million people still do not have electricity and running water. The price of rice has shot up by 50 percent, the cost of fuel has more than doubled, and other basic needs are sapping meager savings.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's state-run media said on Thursday that the country's military-backed Constitution was approved by 92.4 percent in a referendum held everywhere except regions hardest hit by the deadly cyclone two weeks ago. Those areas will vote May 24.

The military, which has ruled Myanmar for nearly 50 years and keeps a tight rein on all aspects of life here, claim the referendum will pave the way for multi-party elections in 2010, but critics, including Nobel Prize winning opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, claim the referendum, which is aimed primarily at further strengthening the military rule by giving it excessive power, was rigged by the government.