Updated 19th May, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

There are growing calls for international intervention in Burma as the ruling military junta continues to restrict the trickle of foreign aid coming into the country to a trickle.

The death toll from Cyclone Nargis - which cut a swathe of destruction across the Irrawaddy delta on 3rd May - has been revised to more than 77,700 with more than 55,000 still missing. Aid agencies have warned that the death toll could be multiplied by as much as 15 should disease break out.

Destruction in Rangoon in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, More than 100,000 people are feared to have died as a result of the cyclone. PICTURE: World Vision.   Click HERE for more images...

As many as 2.5 million people have been left destitute in the cyclone’s aftermath and there are reports that as many as 500,000 people are living in makeshift camps in the affected delta region. It’s expected that forecast monsoon conditions will only add to the deteriorating situation.

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, this week said “all means” need to be used to deliver aid into the stricken nation while Spain’s State Secretary for European Affairs, Lopez Garrido, reportedly said that blocking the arrival of aid “would be similar to a crime against humanity”.

The EU’s top aid official - Louis Michel - met with government officials in Rangoon this week but little progress was made. The United Nations is now attempting to send its highest ranking aid official - Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes - into the country but, as of Friday morning, had not yet received approval to do so.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who met with representatives of the Association of South-East Asian Nations this week, said that much more needed to be done in addressing the situation in Burma.

Joining a growing chorus of voices around the world, Mr Ki-moon has previously strongly criticised the military junta for not allowing a speedy response to the disaster while the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that a “second catastrophe” could result if aid was not allowed through.

There have been reports that as well as blocking aid, Burma’s military government have also seized some supplies brought in from outside the country for its own use and substituted it with inferior quality supplies which are then delivered to cyclone victims.

US-based Human Rights Watch said this week that countries delivering aid to Burma should insist on monitoring its distribution, warning that if relief supplies are left in the hands of the Burmese military, it “simply won’t reach those most in need”.

Speaking on Australian television this week, World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello - who is in Burma, described the situation as “unprecedented” and said relief workers were now in a race against disease and the weather.

“This is really bad, really bad,” he said.

Mr Costello said the almost 600 local World Vision staff operating in Burma had managed to deliver relief to as many as 10,000 people.

Australia meanwhile has pledged to increase it’s aid to $25 million, up from the initial $3 million they had announced in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone.

The UN has launched a “flash appeal” for $US187 million to provide relief assistance. It has identified food, water purification supplies, sanitation facilities, shelter, fuel and medical supplies as crucial needs.

Meanwhile, the military junta has announced that the referendum on a new constitution conducted throughout unaffected parts of the country last week returned a 92.4 per cent vote in favour of the new document.

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