Foreign aid workers on Tuesday pressed into Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta, testing the junta’s pledge to open up areas where one million people have yet to receive aid three weeks after the cyclone. Six foreign staff based in Rangoon with the United Nations Children’s Fund were allowed to join teams of mainly Burma workers.
A few aid shipments had arrived in Burma’s main city by Thursday, but the planeloads of supplies and heavy equipment needed to help millions of cyclone victims remain largely stranded outside the country. In a dramatic development, the ruling junta agreed to accept United States emergency aid after last weekend’s cyclone.