Word: burma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Seven days," says Kyaw Mya, another refugee at the temple, in broken English. "Seven days. Nothing coming. The government does nothing." Kyaw Mya is a retired soldier who cannot hide his disgust for the military regime that has run Burma for more than 40 years. "Nothing has been given from the government. They do not care to look after the public." Right now, the only person caring for them is a local midwife who dispenses from a plastic bag her meager but precious pharmacy: paracetamol, a few antibiotics, some antacid tablets. None of it will help the infant Kyaw...
...Temples, schools and other buildings still standing in Burma's low-lying delta region are filling up with the sick and the homeless. State media claims that Nargis killed nearly 23,000 people, with more than 40,000 missing; the United Nations estimates some 1.5 million people will be severely affected. But traveling the road to Bogalay-a delta town which lay in the cyclone's path and took its full fury-there is little sign of a major relief operation...
...Burma's government originally estimated the cyclone killed 10,000 people in Bogolay and the surrounding area, but I saw no dead bodies on the road to the city or in Bogalay itself. I saw no funerals. While the place is in tatters, the death toll may be greater in more exposed villages closer to the sea. Bogalay is slightly inland; the majority of deaths occurred in more flimsy coastal villages fully exposed to the elements and unprotected from a 12-foot-high surge of water...
...Burma's junta has only five helicopters at its disposal, says a Western diplomat in Rangoon. Today, I saw only three helicopters; or perhaps I saw only one helicopter three times. There were a few cars belonging to foreign aid agencies such as MSF and UNICEF, but these were ferrying experts here to assess the situation, not to provide relief...
...Kyaw Mya, the ex-soldier, and tens of thousands like him await basic supplies. Yet the day before, Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, who is overseeing Burma's relief effort, "presented 20 sets of TV, 10 DVD players, and 10 satellite receivers" to entertain storm victims elsewhere in the delta, reported the junta newspaper The New Light of Myanmar. "The government is not coming," summarizes Kyaw Mya. "Foreign countries are not coming...