Press conference on Myanmar
Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s press conference on Myanmar by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes:
Thank you very much for being here this morning. Let me just add to what the Secretary-General said in terms what’s actually happening on the ground in the various areas we’ve been discussing in the last few days. (See Press Release SG/SM/11562)
First of all, on the assessment side, many assessments are still under way, and there are national and increasingly international teams in the area. Obviously, the damage is extremely severe in many areas. I don’t have anything to add on that really, or on the casualty figures, or the numbers of those affected, beyond what the Secretary-General already said to you.
I think the needs in general are clear, and again, they’re not new: it is food, particularly high-energy biscuits, for example; it is clean water, for example through water purification tablets, which are a huge need; it is shelter; and it is medical supplies.
Obviously, everybody’s focusing very much on the health issues to see what the risk of major infections, major epidemics is. I think we’re all conscious that heavy rain is forecast for the area in the next few days. I hope it doesn’t come, but it may. The position at the moment, as I am watching it very carefully, is that there are some isolated cases of diarrhoea and of malaria, but, so far, nothing to provoke a huge alarm at this stage, but we’re not quite at the stage where we’d expect that in this kind of crisis.
One other point -- just to draw attention to perhaps -- is that there is a tendency for people to begin to concentrate now in different places; they’re moving away from the flooded areas in the delta towards the higher ground, towards some of the towns and villages which are less affected. I think that’s mainly a spontaneous movement, there could be some camps set up at some stage there. This has good and bad sides to it. It’s good in the sense that it’s easier to reach people if they’re concentrated in that way for aid delivery, but, obviously, it can increase the risks of infections if we’re not careful.
On the personnel and visa sides, there has been some slight improvement, again, in the last few days, particularly in the last 24 hours. Our Acting Resident Coordinator was in the capital, Naypyidaw, earlier today, I should say, because obviously they’re many hours behind -- and it was confirmed that 34 visas for United Nations relief staff and from the different agencies would now be granted, or are being granted -- I thought there’s a willingness to look positively at visa applications for other UN relief personnel. This is welcome, but clearly, nothing like enough for the scale of the problem we’re trying to deal with.
And the visa position for international NGOs is a little bit less clear and less satisfactory, I fear, but we don’t have a total picture of that, but there’s some limited good news on that front, but clearly more is needed.
Full Details:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KKAA-7EL4Q7?OpenDocument
Published on: 2008-05-17
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