Myanmar scribe held for burying cyclone dead

The Times of India

BANGKOK: A Myanmar journalist has been arrested and his magazine closed down apparently because he travelled to the Irrawaddy Delta to help bury people killed in the cyclone, media rights watchdogs said on Thursday. Aung Kyaw San, editor of the Myanmar Tribune , was arrested on June 15 along with 16 others who had volunteered to help him, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said in a statement. His group of volunteers had buried more than 400 bodies following Red Cross procedures, but were arrested as they returned to the main city of Yangon to collect more burial sacks, the groups said. Five of them, including Aung Kyaw San, are being held in the Insein Prison north of Yangon. “It is now essential to get the junta to stop preventing civil society, including the press, from participating in the relief effort,” the groups said. At least 10 journalists and a blogger are now detained in Myanmar, they added. More than 138,000 people are dead or missing after Cyclone Nargis hit the country nearly eight weeks ago. According to United Nations estimates, 2.4 million people need humanitarian aid. In a report released on Wednesday, experts from the UN and Southeast Asia said that only 45 per cent of survivors are receiving humanitarian aid, leaving most to fend for themselves or seek help from local donors. Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country since 1962, sparked global outrage in the weeks after the storm by refusing to allow a major international relief effort.

Arrested: Volunteers Who Bury the Dead

Seven Burmese civilian volunteer aid workers, members of a team known as "The Group that Buries the Dead," were arrested on June 14, following their efforts to bury victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Among those arrested are Lin Htet Naing, Hnin Pwint Wei, Hein Yazar Tun and Aung Kyaw San, the group's leader, according to Tun Myint Aung, a member of the 88 Generation Students Group. Three unidentified volunteers in the group were also arrested.

Aung Kyaw San, the chief editor of the Myanmar Tribune weekly journal, and his volunteer team of several dozen people undertook the grim task of removing some of the many corpses that still lie in the rivers and fields throughout the Irrawaddy delta.

The bodies, which had badly decomposed since the cyclone struck on May 2-3, were given simple cremation or burial rites.

"They worked to clean up the bodies around Bogalay," an aid worker close to the group told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. "The authorities have not done much...

Bodies rotting in Myanmar

The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday it had sent body bags to cyclone-hit Myanmar, as experts warned that rotting corpses remain uncollected and pose a major health risk.

The United Nations' health arm said the body bags are among shipments of 30 000 surgical masks and 30 000 gloves that have been sent to the Irrawaddy delta region which was obliterated in the 2 May catastrophe.

Some 100†000 killed

A spokesperson was not able to say immediately how many body bags have been sent. The UN has said it believes about 100 000 people were killed and reports from the disaster zone say most victims remain where they fell.

"Diarrhoea and dysentery cases have been reported, but no cholera cases were confirmed," the WHO said in a statement, amid fears that the decomposing bodies are contaminating rivers and canals where drinking water is being drawn.

"Immediate efforts are focused on ensuring care and treatment to the injured population and preventing...

Bodies litter Myanmar delta after cyclone, survivors focused on staying alive

As the bloated bodies rise and fall with the current, women scrub clothes along the river bank, villagers bathe to cool themselves and a lone child sits on a dock staring aimlessly into the water.

Those unable to escape the catastrophic cyclone that pounded Myanmar's rice-growing Irrawaddy delta a week ago continue to litter the flooded landscape. But with little aid still getting through to desperate survivors, the dead have largely been abandoned - left to decay where the brackish waters carried them or waiting to be pulled out to sea by the rising tides.

"The first few we saw, we were all very shocked," said U Pinyatale, a monk from the area who has prayed for the dead. "After a while, there were just too many."

More than 50 bodies can be spotted in just three hours on the river. Many have turned white as they float entwined in mangrove trees, where they remain lodged. The smell of dead fish permeates the humid air as dozens of small boats ferrying...

Bodies Flow Into Hard-Hit Area of Myanmar