Burmese Evicted from Relief Centres

by Jarrett Martineau | May 30, 2008 at 12:41 pm | 112 views | add comment

Many of the refugees have almost no shelter.

Conditions in storm-ravaged Myanmar (Burma) have gone from bad to worse. Thousands of Burmese families affected by Cyclone Nargis have not only failed to receive any aid, from either national or international relief organizations, they are also now being evicted from camps near cyclone relief centres by the nation's military junta.

Burma's junta started evicting destitute families from government-run cyclone relief centres today, apparently out of concern the tented villages might become permanent.
"It is better that they move to their homes where they are more stable," a government official said at one camp where people have been told to clear out by 4pm (local time). "Here, they are relying on donations and it is not stable."

Locals and aid workers said 39 camps in the immediate vicinity of Kyauktan, 30km south of Yangon, were being cleared out as part of a general eviction plan.

"We knew we had to go at some point but we had hoped for more support," 21-year-old trishaw driver Kyaw Moe Thu said as he trudged out of the camp with his five brothers and sisters.

The youngest, a two-year-old girl named Moe Win Kyah, was sheltered by the others under a pair of black umbrellas.

They had been given 20 bamboo poles and some tarpaulins to help rebuild their lives in the Irrawaddy delta, where 134,000 people were left dead or missing by Cyclone Nargis on May 2nd.

"Right now, we are disappointed," Kyaw Moe Thu said. "We were promised 30 poles by the government. They told us we will get rice each month, but right now we have nothing."

In Singapore, the city-state's prime minister told a security conference that Burma's generals were wary of admitting foreign aid workers because it would show they were not capable of handling the disaster.