Pressure on Burma over camp evictions

Foreign aid groups have pressed Burma to stop closing relief camps after Cyclone Nargis left millions destitute.

A meeting is being held between aid groups and the Burmese government, during which red tape and the closure of cyclone camps will be discussed.

Authorities have pushed ahead with a campaign, condemned by human rights groups and branded "unacceptable" by the United Nations, of evictions of displaced people from government shelters.

"If populations are on the move all the time, it's very hard to reach them," said Chris Webster, spokesman for the charity World Vision in Rangoon.

The last camp in Kawhmu, a district south of Rangoon, was shut on Monday.

Meanwhile, international experts have begun a mission to assess the scale of the devastation a month after the storm.

The cyclone is officially thought to have left 134,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

But many survivors have not yet been reached and Western nations and foreign aid groups complain the relief effort is being hampered by the inflexibility of Burma's military rulers.

"They've had a cyclone but they're not changing the rules. It's business as usual," an official at an aid agency in Rangoon said.

Cumbersome regulations are blocking more vehicles and boats being used to distribute vital aid and even access to satellite communications is being made difficult, the official added.

The UN estimates that 1.3 million people had been given some assistance, although this was patchy and only half of those in the worst-hit delta had been reached.

"There remains a serious lack of sufficient and sustained humanitarian assistance for the affected populations," the UN's humanitarian arm said in a report.

In the last week around 15 international staff had been allowed to travel to the delta, but agencies still have no permanent presence, it said.

World Food Programme boss Josette Sheeran said its £35 million food aid programme faced a 64 per cent funding shortfall, as did its logistics plan, which includes boats, trucks and helicopters.

"With current contributions, we will run out of food by mid-July," she said.

A UN "flash appeal" also remains well short of its £100 million target a month after the disaster.

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