A heavy rain falls on the refugees in ragged clothes waiting patiently at 8 am on Wednesday in front of the heavy gate of Thakya Mara Zein Pagoda in Laputta Township.

They are wet and cold. They rub their hands to stop shivering. Their faces betray real hunger. Dehydrated and exhausted, they have eyes like people who have been fighting a war. They stare intently at the people working in the blue-colored canvas tents.

They represent more than 1.5 homeless Burmese now struggling for survival in the Irrawaddy delta, victims of Cyclone Nargis. They are gathered at this temporary camp for food. If they are lucky they will get real rice.

A man with a megaphone announces in a loud voice: “Please don’t crowd around the gate. We will share the rice as soon as we receive it. Please don’t block the road.”
The refugees remain motionless at the gate.

One hour later, the man returns: “We have no rice for today. We have nothing to share at this moment, but we will cook rice soup from rice left over from yesterday. We will serve it at 11.”

The rice soup amounts to one glass of water with low-quality Mee Done rice, almost nothing. But it was better than nothing.

I entered the pagoda compound as it started raining more heavily. Thousands of people huddled under pieces of canvas. Children’s lips are pale and blue. Some people try to build small fires under the canvas. A mother tries to sooth her crying baby with breast-feeding.

“Thakya Mara Zein Pagoda now has 2,477 refugees from 534 families,” one of the refugee leaders tells me “There are 221 children under age 5. We’re one of the biggest camps in Laputta.” Stark statistics to describe suffering people.

Talking with the refugees, I start to piece together a picture of their lives and routine. Almost everyone lost family members or relatives during the cyclone. On this, the 12th day following of the disaster, they would receive a little rice soup, but on other days, if a big army officer or official comes by to check the camp, they might get a pack of Yum-Yum instant noodles. For drinking water, they fetch it themselves from chlorinated ponds and wells in the town, treated by UN Development Programme staff.

A 35-year-old housewife at another shelter, State High School No 1, says, “We got two tins of rice yesterday, but we don’t get a rice donation everyday. If we can’t get rice, we have to queue at the place donating boiled rice water.”

The UN World Food Program (WFP) and NGOs arrived in the area a few days ago. They are coordinating the relief effort in what’s called a “Cluster Response Plan,” which distributes food, clothing, medicine and drinking water, under the best of circumstances. It’s unclear how many essential items such as food, clothing and medicine is actually getting to the refugees at this point. Many survivors have yet to be contacted by aid workers.

A UN staffer said, “There are 49 temporary shelters in Laputta Township and the total population in these camps is 33,887. We provide 36 tons of rice a day; it means 720 sacks per day. We try to provide 5 kilos of rice a day (2 tins). We procure most of the rice from Myaung Mya Township and the surrounding area.”

A group of refugees described life at State High School No 1: “Yesterday, we spent the day and night outside in heavy rain, and we couldn’t sleep. We have no shelter. All our clothes are wet, and we have noting else to wear. We just sat idle in the rain for the whole night. Some children now have fevers and colds.” They said they urgently need clothing, blankets, sheltering materials and other food items.

I soon began to hear contradictory stories, depending on if I was talking to refugees or relief workers. A Burmese UN staffer in Laputta said, “We provide as much as we have. But one of the difficulties is that some refugees tell people they get nothing and don’t receive even rice. Their attitude is bad. They seek food from strangers, thinking they can help. The closer you get to the coastal area, the refugees’ attitudes are worse and worse.”

The man who spoke those words was a senior Burmese official working for the UN. I was shocked. How could a UN worker have such an attitude following the devastation and suffering of his fellow citizens?

I saw several private aid groups in Laputta, including UNDP, the UN World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF, UNHCR, Marlin, Malteser International, MSF (Holland) and a few other INGOs. As always happens in a disaster area, the lives of the refuges and the lives of the aid workers were significantly different. Refugees by the thousands walked along the roads and lived outdoors. Aid staff rode in air-conditioned vehicles and wore badges and T-shirts with their organization’s symbol, living in the town’s best hotels.

The 49 temporary camps for cyclone victims in Laputta included Tha-Baik Kyo Monastery, Set Taw Yar Monastery, Lay Htat Kyaung Monastery, Tha-Yet Taw Monastery, State Hight School (SHS) No 1, SHS No 2, Min Kyaung Monastery, Nanda Wun Monastery, Myo Lel Kyaung Monastery, Kyaik Htee-Yoe monastery, Su Taung Pyi Pagoda campus are lack with proper shelter for refugees.

Clearly, the UN, the NGOs and the Burmese authorities were all struggling, unable to deliver adequate food and supplies to the refugees.

The 100 blue-colored tents set up on the outskirts of Laputta Township were put up when Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein visited Laputta. The Burmese media showed images of the tents, but it failed to show the tens of thousands of homeless survivors without any shelter.

There are approximately 35,000 refugees in Laputta and another 40,000 in Maung Mya Township, located in 26 refugee camps. Some refugees are not allowed to group up in families and are separated into groups of men or women. Some are not allowed to leave the camps after 6 p.m.

“Some refugees are kept on a football field at Myaung Mya,” said a former refugee there. “Family members can meet each other during the day.”

Laputta Township used to have 508 villages and 59 village tracts, including, Yae Way, Tha-Bay Chaung, Hlwa Sar, Sa Lu Seik, Bine Tauk Chaung, A Hmat (Su Paung), Yae Twin Seik, Kamala, Naung Bin Tha, Thin Gan Gyi, Thin Gan Lay. A village tract is usually composed of at least 20 villages.

In one village tract, the population can range from 3,000 to 10,000 people.

If the estimate of Laputta authorities is accurate, the cyclone’s death toll will increase dramatically.

According to a confidential list put together by local authorities 12 days after the cyclone, of Laputta’s 450,000 population, approximately 120,000 died in the cyclone, a township staff worker told me.

The Red Cross estimates that up to 128,000 have died in the cyclone and 2.51 million were affected.

A local administrative officer told me: “For example, Pyin Sa Lu used to be a village tract of Laputta. Last year, it was upgraded as sub-township of Laputta and during that time, it population was more than 4,000. After the disaster, we could find only 358 people alive from Pyin Sa Lu. The others were dead.”

The authorities and NGOs stopped search and evacuation operations 10 days after the cyclone. However, many people still live in the devastated area.

“There are still many refugees stranded in Bi Tut village of Laputt,” a crewman on a boat told me. “When our salt boat passed that area, people from the shore asked us for water. We dared not to stop, since there was a big crowd. We were afraid they might rob us, and we speed up. We saw many bodies in Byan Hlwar River, which has a strong flow. Thousands, a rotten smell covered the place.”

Bodies still float around the Laputta jetty and surrounding shoreline, residents said.
“There are a lot of bodies and nobody dares to eat fish and prawns.”

Many Laputta refugees suffer from trauma and psychological problems. Refugees looked at me with hope. When I gave a biscuit pack, which I brought from Rangoon, to a child, about 50 people surrounded me. Then they began telling me about their terrible experiences and feelings.

Refugees urgently need food and shelter. They also need people who can show them sympathy and who understand their feelings. They need people who can listen to their stories.

A volunteer doctor told me most refugees are suffering from pneumonia, acute lung infection or diarrhea. The children are most vulnerable.

“There is no proper latrine in the refugee camps,” he said. “They go out and defecate here and there. Later, it could be worse if we have a cholera outbreak. Pneumonia is quite common since they have no proper shelter.”

Larger amounts of relief aid are arriving at Rangoon airport daily. I hope the Burmese authorities allow the world’s humanitarian aid to continue. They should also allow foreigners to enter the country, because the scale of the disaster is beyond their ability to cope. The military government must expedite aid delivery to the Irrawaddy delta, where hundreds of thousands of refugees still wait for the most basic elements of survival. The health of thousands of refugees deteriorates daily.

So far, relief aid has reached a small number of survivors. Much remains to be done for many more months before we can say we have met our duty to help people who are living on the brink of a natural and man-made disaster, many suffering silently and without hope.