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Myanmar denies evicting cyclone survivors from shelters - Printable Version

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Myanmar denies evicting cyclone survivors from shelters - cyrano - 06-08-2008 06:18 AM

Myanmar denies evicting cyclone survivors from shelters

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's junta denied on Sunday forcing survivors of Cyclone Nargis out of emergency shelters and back to their flattened villages, five weeks after the storm left 133,000 dead or missing.

The government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar said the claims were "totally groundless," and insisted storm victims had been given relief supplies so they could voluntarily return home.

"A storm does not last for more than one or two days. Now, all has been over," it said.

Amnesty International said Thursday that thousands of people had been forced from official shelters and given just six dollars and two small portions of rice to return to their ruined villages.

Other storm victims were forced out of schools so that classes could resume last week, Amnesty said.

But the junta's official newspaper said in Saturday's edition, which was available only one day later, that victims were returning to their homes voluntarily and only if they had enough food, water and shelter to survive.

"The government has been able to carry out the emergency relief operations," it said. "Moreover, it has been able to fulfil the urgent needs of the storm victims such as shelter, food and health care while restoring their livelihoods to a certain degree."

"So the authorities have allowed the victims to return home if they want to. Allowing them to return to their home places is not uprooting them or ignoring their difficulties," it said.

The paper denounced the foreign reports, saying "the rumours are invented and spread by certain Western countries with negative attitude towards our country."

It also repeated earlier condemnations of foreign media reports on the cyclone as the work of "self-centered persons and unscrupulous elements."

The United Nations says 2.4 million people need emergency help, and that one million have yet to receive any international aid.

Private donors have tried to fill the gap, but AFP reporters who visited remote villages in the hardest-hit parts of the Irrawaddy Delta said that security had been tightened around the region and that volunteers were increasingly being turned away.