Myanmar children 'could starve within weeks'

18-05-2008

BANGKOK (AFP) - A leading aid group warned Sunday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon.

Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks".

"We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

"When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days. Children may already be dying as a result of a lack of food."

Cyclone Nargis tore a path of destruction through southwest Myanmar earlier this month, leaving nearly 134,000 people dead or missing and affecting up to 2.5 million survivors, the United Nations has said.

As many as 40 percent of the needy are believed to be children, and aid workers have become increasingly frustrated by the Myanmar regime's restrictions on the relief operation.

Save the Children said that 30,000 children in the delta region of Myanmar, one of the world's poorest countries, were malnourished before the storm.

The cyclone destroyed food stocks and rice paddies in the key food producing region, raising fears of a famine in the military-ruled nation.

"With hundreds of thousands of people still not receiving aid, many of these children will not survive much longer," the statement said.

Save the Children said they had so far reached 140,000 people -- a small proportion of the roughly 2.5 million people desperately in need of food, shelter, clean water and medical supplies.

While supplies have been arriving in Yangon, relief agencies say the junta's insistence that they can deliver all the aid themselves -- despite a lack of equipment -- has created a bottle-neck in getting food to the most needy.