By KUNA,
London : Britons’ donations to the Cyclone Nargis crisis fund topped eight million pounds Monday as a UK minister suggested Burma could soon open up to more foreign aid.
Britains Foreign Office Minister responsible for Asia Lord Malloch-Brown, on a brief visit to the disaster-stricken nation, told the BBC the relief effort to help the 2.5 million survivors was now “starting to move”.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, rebuffed in attempts to discuss the situation over the telephone with Burma’s military leaders, announced yesterday he too would go to the disaster zone later this week to try to ramp up aid efforts.
Aid agencies said supplies are getting to victims in the affected Irrawaddy Delta area but warned much greater quantities are needed to avert a second catastrophe.
Burma’s military government is insisting on controlling distribution of aid and has banned foreigners from entering cyclone-hit areas, significantly hampering the relief effort.
The international community is hoping that an emergency meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) in Singapore today will provide a breakthrough, commentators said.
Lord Malloch-Brown, who flew back to Britain last night, said aid agencies and Burma’s ruling junta had found a “middle ground” they could agree on for delivery of supplies.
He said “We have to negotiate as broad and ambitious an access as possible, but recognise it’s going to be less than everything we want.” “We’re just going to have to see what negotiations in the coming days by the Asian leaders (and) by the UN Secretary-General achieves.
“I think you’re going to see quite dramatic steps by the Burmese to open up, ” he added.
The minister delivered a letter from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the junta’s chairman General Than Shwe insisting Britain was putting politics aside to help the cyclone’s victims.
Burmese authorities put the death toll from the May 2 cyclone at 78,000, with a further 56,000 people missing.
Aid agencies believe the true figure could be even higher, and the UN estimates that emergency supplies from the international community have reached only 500,000 survivors.