Burmese junta 'created catastrophe'

6:38pm Saturday 17th May 2008

Burma's military government faces growing international pressure to stop blocking foreign aid as Gordon Brown accused the regime of "inhuman" treatment of the survivors of Cyclone Nargis.

The Prime Minister said the natural disaster that struck the south-east Asian nation a fortnight ago was becoming a "man-made catastrophe" because of the ruling junta's failings.

Authorities in Burma put the death toll from the cyclone at 78,000 with a further 56,000 people missing.

Many of the estimated 2.5 million survivors remain in dire need of food, water and shelter, and charity Save the Children says up to 2,000 children are unable to find their parents.

In his strongest condemnation of Burma's junta so far, Mr Brown told the BBC's World Service: "This is inhuman. We have an intolerable situation, created by a natural disaster.

"It is being made into a man-made catastrophe by the negligence, the neglect and the inhuman treatment of the Burmese people by a regime that is failing to act and to allow the international community to do what it wants to do. The responsibility lies with the Burmese regime and they must be held accountable."

Mr Brown also used an address at the general assembly of the Church of Scotland to condemn Burma's uncaring and "unnatural" military dictatorship.

Save the Children warned there was a "very immediate" risk of a second crisis in Burma unless the aid effort was scaled up.

The charity also expressed fears that the row over access for emergency supplies had put the public off donating more money.

Ken Caldwell, Save the Children's director of international operations, told Sky News: "We do sometimes get frustrated when international politics come into this situation. It is clearly in international political terms a very sensitive country. But right now our ask is for the politicians to put their differences aside and concentrate on applying all their efforts to responding to the huge humanitarian crisis we have here."

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