Aid and Relief Awareness for the World

It seems that every single month of 2008 up to now is marked by a major disaster of global scale. Myanmar is just this month’s feature that will probably be forgotten a month from now (maybe even sooner). On May 3rd, cyclone Nargis hit the country and swept away

Just today, UNHCR announced that a major land convoy of supplies and aid started moving from Thailand to Myanmar (Burma) border, while aid from other countries and NGOs still wait outside the country for the permission to enter. Still, the official government refuses almost all outside help and persists on dealing with the thousands of deaths and millions of replaced people as an “internal matter”.

The good thing is that there is already great activity on the Internet with major relief efforts and fund raising, much quicker than that of 2004 tsunami disaster in the same area. The Indian Ocean proves that it is much deadlier and swift than the war in Darfur: the estimated casualties in Myanmar from a single weather event are already more than 1/4 of Darfur’s 5-year conflict. The International Crisis Group pointed out, back in 2004, that the poor social infrastructure and the existing political scene is a recipe for disaster in case of an emergency. Too bad their predictions proved to be so true.

There are many NGOs and projects dealing with aid for Myanmar, like the Foundation for the people of Burma and The Andrew Clark Trust, but unless the government’s attitude changes, there will be much more casualties among the 2-3 millions of displaced population.

For more info, check the constantly updated articles on Wikipedia about the 2008 Nargis incident and Burma-focused NGOs.