World

Myanmar approves all pending visas for UN aid workers

by Dave Keating | May 29, 2008 at 01:53 am

258 views | 2 Recommendations | 1 comment

Myanmar has made good on its pledge to Ban Ki Moon, and approved the visas for foreign aid works that it had been delaying on. However it is still unclear if they will accept aid from American and French military ships focked outside Rangoon.

yanmar's military rulers have approved visas for dozens of international relief workers and were allowing more foreigners into areas devastated by a cyclone that left millions in need of aid, the United Nations said Thursday.

It was an apparent sign that the isolationist regime planned to keep its promise to allow in humanitarian workers from all countries and give them access to the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the cyclone that landed May 2.

The last 45 pending visas were granted to U.N. staffers, while Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders and the U.N. Children's Fund have sent more than 14 workers in recent days into the delta region, a U.N. statement said.

Japan, which has so far donated $13 million in aid, sent a 23-member medical team to the country Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said in Tokyo.

"I went to some areas where no international relief personnel had been to, and the priorities for these people are food and shelter. We're going to be working very hard to deliver these items to them," Tony Banbury, regional head of the U.N. World Food Program, told AP Television News Thursday.