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Myanmar aid stonewalling left thousands dead, says US
Thousands of people died because Myanmar's government rejected offers of foreign aid for cyclone victims, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday.
- Agencies
- Published: 08:21 May 31, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- A vendor in Yangon transports a load of chickens to the market place.
Yangon: Rights groups urged Myanmar's junta on Saturday to stop forcing cyclone survivors to return to their shattered homes where they face more misery or even death.
The started evicting destitute families from government-run cyclone relief centres on Friday, giving them bamboo poles and tarpaulins to rebuild their homes.
"It's unconscionable for Burma's generals to force cyclone victims back to their devastated homes," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
"Claiming a return to 'normalcy' is no basis for returning people to greater misery and possible death," he added.
A government official said refugees are better off moving back to their homes where they are "more stable". "Here, they are relying on donations and it is not stable," the official said.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates blamed the junta for causing the deaths of thousands of people by rejecting offers of foreign aid.
The Pentagon chief accused Myanmar's military rulers of being "deaf and dumb" to international pleas to allow in more foreign aid workers after a cyclone hit the country.
Gates, who is in Singapore for an international security conference, said the United States had tried at least 15 times to get the junta to accept more aid.
He praised Indonesia and Bangladesh's willingness to accept assistance after natural disasters.
"With Burma, the situation has been very different—at a cost of tens of thousands of lives," Gates told a gathering of Asian security and defence officials in Singapore.
The official toll of dead and missing from the cyclone is more than 134,000. An estimated 2.4 million people have been left destitute.
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