Sports ministry denying Suu Kyi access to stadiums

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Burmese government is throwing up obstacles to prevent the National League for Democracy (NLD) from booking sports stadiums for campaign rallies by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

NLD campaign manager Nyan Win told a press conference on Monday in Rangoon that government sports minister Tint San is disrupting the NLD electoral campaign because the ministry will not allow access to book football stadiums, which are necessary to hold the large crowds that Suu Kyi attracts wherever she campaigns.

Government officials have repeatedly claimed that the April 1 by-election would be free and fair, a specific requirement sought by the international community prior to removing sanctions on the military-dominated government which says it is moving toward democracy. The NLD party is contesting for 48 seats in the by-election, and Suu Kyi said she plans to campaign across the country.

NLD spokesperson Ohn Kyaing said Suu Kyi wanted to deliver a speech at Pyapon Stadium in Irrawaddy Region on February 17, but the Sports Ministry would not make the stadium available and she was forced to deliver her speech at Thelgwin on the outskirts of Pyapon.

Talking about the ministry’s actions, Suu Kyi said in her speech in Thelgwin that such actions will damage the government’s credibility, especially with the international community which is carefully monitoring the by-election campaign.

The ministry also sent the NLD a letter rejecting its request to speak on February 15 at the Hlegu Football Stadium in Rangoon Region. Suu Kyi was permitted to use the stadium after the Union Election Commission (UEC) mediated between the two sides. A similar case involved Suu Kyi’s trip to Pathein in Irrawaddy Region in the first week of February, Ohn Kyaing told Mizzima.

On February 4, Suu Kyi was forced to postpone her planned campaign trip to Mandalay because the authorities said the Myanmar Football Federation refused to rent the Bahtoo football stadium for a speech.

The NLD applied on February 17 to the Mandalay Region Sports Department to use the stadium located near Mandalay Mountain, but the authorities did not reply, said Myo Naing, an NLD official from Mandalay Region.

The UEC has been informed about the issue, but so far it has not taken any preventive action, said Ohn Kyaing.

Minister Tint San is the owner of A.C.E Construction Company. In the 2010 general elections, he won a Lower House seat in Myaungmya Township as a Union Solidarity and Development Party candidate. In March 2011, he resigned to become Minister of Hotels and Tourism and Sports Minister.

In the April 1 by-election, Dr. Phyo Ko Ko Tint San, a son of Minister Tint San, is a candidate for a seat in the Myaungmya Township constituency. The NLD candidate is Mann Johnny.

Meanwhile, at the NLD press conference on Monday, Nyan Win said Upper House MP Dr. Myat Nyar Na Soe has resigned from the National Democratic Force to become an NLD member.

http://networkedblogs.com/ubZLL

I wonder how those MCA and Gerakan reaction will be?

My worries after the death of Teoh Beng Hock is not WHAT next but WHO is next.

We are not less then the regime controlling Myanmar, we have our own JUNTA now…

By the way, what MCA and Gerakan will do?  Dont ask PPP – They cant even settle their own kitchen.

SHAHRUL PESHAWAR – ONE MALAYSIA was shocked.

Rohingya: A regional problem

Solving the problem of Burmese Muslim refugees will take the full efforts of several of the region’s organisations

By: Larry Jagan

“The Rohingya issue is a very complicated challenge to the entire region of Southeast Asia,” Mr Surin told Spectrum in an exclusive interview. “Asean happens to be a foremost regional organisation aspiring to evolve into a community of caring societies, so it has to be an issue of concern to Asean.”

 

The Rohingya issue featured prominently in bilateral talks in the region last week. US Secretary for State Hillary Clinton discussed it during meetings with both the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and the foreign minister, Hasan Wirajuda. Army chief Anupong Paojinda reportedly raised the issue with the Burmese junta’s leader General Than Shwe when he visited the Burmese capital Naypyidaw earlier in the week, while Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva also compared notes with his Indonesian counterpart during his visit to Jakarta.

“We are going to find a suitable way to raise the Rohingya issue during the Asean meeting,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “But it may not be discussed formally at the summit.”

But this is unlikely to satisfy activists and human rights groups who believe that unless there is a strong political will on the part of the region’s leaders at the forthcoming summit to seriously tackle the issue, the problem will be left to fester.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN: Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after their meeting in Jakarta.

“The Rohingya issue is a cross-border problem that cannot be handled by one country alone, it needs a regional response,” Yap Swee Seng head of a regional human rights group, Forum-Asia, told journalists last Thursday ahead of the Asean summit. “While it may be discussed on the margins of the Asean leaders’ meeting, what is needed is a formal consultative meeting of Asean, including Bangladesh and India, who have both been affected by the exodus of Rohingya from Burma.”

Thailand and Indonesia have already agreed that the problem will be referred to the Bali Process after the summit. In fact, the Indonesian and Australian foreign ministers, who chair the international group, have already agreed that the next annual gathering will discuss the Rohingya issue. This year’s Bali Process meeting is expected to be held next month, or early in April. “We discussed and welcomed the fact that the question of the Rohingya will form part of the discussion at the forthcoming ministerial meeting of the Bali Process,” Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in Sydney last week, after a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart.

 

“The Bali Process is a very attractive and viable option for the region to get together, to discuss the Rohingya issue,” Mr Surin suggested. “Asean member states affected by the problem can come together and pool their expertise and resources to put this problem into a proper context and manage it together.”

The Bali Process brings together more than 50 countries, mainly Asian, and at ministerial level, to work on practical measures to help combat people smuggling, people trafficking and related transnational crimes in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. “It is primarily a process and framework for information sharing and training of officials, in law enforcement and drafting legislation, in connection with the smuggling and trafficking of people and other crimes,” said Chris Lom, the regional spokesman for the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), based in Bangkok. IOM and the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are part of the secretariat and help facilitate the group’s meetings.

 

MEET AND GREET: Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva compared notes with his Indonesian counterpart.

The Bali Process was originally set up at the Regional Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, held in Bali in February 2002.

“The region has faced these kinds of challenges many times before, including the [Vietnamese] boat people in the 1970s, but more recently the influx of people fleeing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran,” Mr Surin said. “That was the origin of the Bali Process, with Australia very much an active participant in the regional efforts to manage that human tide floating across the Indian Ocean.”

Thailand has been forced to take the lead on the issue after allegations that more than 1,000 Burmese-Muslim illegal immigrants were intercepted in Thai territory and cast adrift in three separate incidents on the high seas in several boats, with little food and water, and their engines disabled or removed. Some of the survivors ended up back in Thailand, some made it to India’s Andaman islands, while others drifted as far as the Indonesian island of Sumatra before being rescued. Many of them accused the Thai authorities of abusing them and treating them inhumanely.

 

REGIONAL INVOLVEMENT: Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr Hassan Wirajuda speak at the opening session of the Australia-Indonesia Conference in Sydney.

The refugees were on their way to Malaysia, according to activists and UN officials who have had access to the survivors. Most of them paid the equivalent of 10,000 baht to smugglers who promised to get them to Thailand on the first stage of their trip to a better life. “They would then pay Thai traffickers a further 20,000 baht or so to get them to Malaysia,” said Chris Lewa, who works with the regional Arakan Project, which monitors the situation of the Burmese Muslims, both in Arakan state and those who try to escape the country.

The refugees are members of the ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority, who live in northern Arakan state, in western Burma bordering Bangladesh. They have fled social and religious persecution by the Burmese military authorities there. Most human rights activists believe that the abuses committed by the junta in the Muslim-dominated areas of western Burma are worse than anywhere else in the country.

“Burma’s Rohingya minority is subject to systematic persecution. They are effectively denied citizenship, they have their land confiscated, and many are regularly forced to work on government projects without pay,” said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Burma researcher. “They are often prevented from marrying or conducting religious ceremonies. They are also effectively prevented from travelling within the country as well. The regime creates conditions and circumstances that make it clear to the Rohingya that they are not wanted or welcome, so it’s no surprise that they try to flee the country by the thousands.”

 

MILITARY MIGHT: Burma’s Senior General Than Shwe, left, and Thailand’s General Anupong Paojinda.

Thousands make the hazardous two-week journey from Bangladesh at this time of year  –  between November and April  –  when the seas are not so rough. “We cannot tolerate the suffering any more. We would rather risk going to sea than stay and perish little by little,” one of those who fled Burma and ended up in Thailand told Spectrum. “Live or die; it’s up to Allah.”

More than 5,000 Rohingya have left Bangladesh in the past four months, according to researchers at the Arakan Project. Some have managed to make it to Malaysia, but several thousand Rohingya refugees may have perished in the Andaman Sea in pursuit of freedom and a better life, said Mr Lewa.

The danger now is that by relying on the Bali Process to sort out the problem of the Rohingya boat people, the issue will be treated as people smuggling rather than as a result of persecution.

“It is important that they [the Rohingya] are clearly identified, not just as economic migrants who have been trafficked,” said a UN worker who has interviewed many of the survivors of the latest incidents, but declined to be indentified. “They are asylum seekers escaping oppression, the denial of their rights, violence, land confiscation and religious persecution.”

“UNHCR would like to point out that being trafficked or smuggled does not preclude persons also having a legitimate claim to being a refugee,” said the regional spokesperson for UNHCR, Kitty McKinsey. “Often people fleeing persecution have no way out of their country other than to resort to smugglers or traffickers.”

The root cause of this latest exodus from Burma is the junta’s treatment of its Muslim minority, especially in Arakan state. The regime refuses to accept that they are Burmese citizens. “In reality, the Rohingya are neither Myanmar people nor Myanmar’s ethnic group,” the Burmese consul general in Hong Kong, Ye Myint Aung, wrote in a letter circulated to the press. And what is more they are “ugly as ogres”, he added.

The issue of Burma’s Rohingya has proved an intractable problem in the past. More than a quarter of a million fled massive human rights violations at the hands of the Burmese army. More than 200,000 ended up in camps in Bangladesh in Cox’s Bazaar from 1991 to 1993, largely in the care of UNHCR. Although the UN managed to negotiate a repatriation agreement between Burma and Bangldesh, many thousands remained in Bangladesh, and many of those who returned to Arakan simply fled again at the first opportunity.

So the countries of the region, with the help of the UN and several Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia, have tried in the past to help resolve this problem. But all efforts have floundered, largely because of the intransigence of Burma’s military rulers. At the height of the last mass exodus of Burmese-Muslim refugees from Arakan more than 15 years ago  –  the then Bangladesh foreign minister, Mustifizur Rahman (now deceased) said that the Rohingya issue could never be solved while the generals were still in power in Burma.

Many analysts and activists would agree. But that is no excuse for not trying, according to Asian diplomats.

“Countries have always been reluctant to deal with this challenge on their own. They are even hesitant to bilateralise the problem. So as a region we must try to face the challenge as a region,” Mr Surin said.

“Our image, our profile, and our efficiency as a regional organisation, are being tested by the current Rohingya phenomenon. Strong leadership and a determined political will are needed.”

Rohingya are Muslim outcasts, not welcome anywhere

By AMBIKA AHUJA and MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writers Ambika Ahuja And Michael Casey, Associated Press Writers – Sat Feb 14, 12:03 pm ET

AP – Muhammad Syafirullah, one of Rohingya boat people rescued by Acehnese fishermen lies on a hospital bed …

BANGKOK, Thailand – For generations, the ethnic Muslim Rohingya have endured persecution by the ruling junta of Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country.

The plight of the Rohingya, descendants of Arab traders from the 7th century, gained international attention over the past month after five boatloads of haggard migrants were found in the waters around Indonesia and the Andaman Islands.

But unlike the Kurds or the Palestinians, no one has championed the cause of the Rohingya. Most countries, from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia, see them as little more than a source of cheap labor for the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.

“The Rohingya are probably the most friendless people in the world. They just have no one advocating for them at all,” said Kitty McKinsey, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. “Hardly any of them have legal status anywhere in the world.”

There are an estimated 750,000 Rohingya living in Myanmar’s mountainous northern state of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. Thousands flee every year, trying to escape a life of abuse that was codified in 1982 with a law that virtually bars them from becoming citizens.

A spokesman for Myanmar’s military government did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment. It has repeatedly denied abusing the Rohingya, though Amnesty International said the junta has described them as less than human. Rights groups have documented widespread abuses, including forced labor, land seizures and rape.

“It was like living in hell,” said Mohamad Zagit, who left after soldiers confiscated his family’s rice farm and then threw him in jail for praying at a local mosque. The 23-year-old spoke from his hospital bed in Thailand, where he had been detained after fleeing Myanmar.

“We have no rights,” said Muhamad Shafirullah, who was among 200 migrants rescued by the Indonesian navy last week. He recalled how he was jailed in Myanmar, his family’s land stolen and a cousin dragged into the jungle and shot dead. “They rape and kill our women. We can’t practice our religion. We aren’t allowed to travel from village to village … It’s almost impossible, even, to get married or go to school.”

Twice since the 1970s, waves of attacks by the military and Buddhist villagers forced hundred of thousands of Rohingya to flee over the border to Bangladesh, a Muslim country whose people speak a similar language. Many have since been repatriated, but 200,000 still work there as illegal migrants and another 28,000 live in squalid refugee camps.

Violence against Rohingya women is common, and they face the threat of prison because of their illegal status, said Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Bangkok-based Arakan Project, an advocacy group for the Rohingya. Thousands of Rohingya have taken to the seas from Bangladesh in search of better jobs, but ended up drowning or at the mercy of traffickers.

For years, the Rohingya traveled to the Middle East for work, with nearly a half million ending up in Saudi Arabia.

But in recent years — partly because of bureaucratic hurdles faced by Muslims following 9/11 — many now try to go instead by boat to Thailand and then overland to Malaysia, another Islamic nation.

But even those who make it to Malaysia then struggle find good jobs and quickly discover that, there too, intolerance is growing. Many of the 14,300 Rohingya in Malaysia live in cramped, rundown apartments in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and face the constant threat of deportation, community leaders said. If caught, the migrants can be caned and imprisoned for up to five years.

Yet most refugee advocates expect Rohingya migrants will keep coming.

“My 14 children rely on me. They have no safety, no food, nothing,” said Mohamad Salim, a 35-year-old, bearded fisherman who also was detained and hospitalized in Thailand and begged to be allowed to continue onto Malaysia.

“What will they eat? How will they live if I don’t find work?” he said, his voice trembling.

Associated Press writer Irwan Firdaus contributed to this report from Idi Rayeuk, Indonesia; Casey in Bangkok; Ahuja in Ranong; Julia Zappei in Malaysia and Farid Hossain in Bangladesh contributed to this report.

SHAHRUL PESHAWAR – The Myanmar Junta is adopting the same policy used by Thailand towards muslim.  In Thailand they accept Muslim group known as Thai Muslim, but treating double standard for other Muslim such as the Malay.  As per Myanmar, they too accept Muslim in the country but not a Rohingya Muslim, it is a pity to them.  Rohingyan Muslim is not a new group of races, they had existed much earlier and they had formed their own dynasties back in 16th Century and even had various diplomatic missions abroad.

Myanmar: One-tenth of Burmese go hungry despite food surplus

Source: AlertNet

Date: 05 Feb 2009

Myanmar, once known as the rice bowl of Asia, still boasts a surplus of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rice and maize. Yet a tenth of the population is going hungry, according to the first U.N. food security report on the country.

“The reality is that this country has got massive potential,” said Chris Kaye, country representative for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), which has been operating in Myanmar since 1994.

“Not only is it a major producer of rice but also many other agricultural products. There should not be a need for food assistance in Myanmar,” said Kaye.

After the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis last May, affected townships saw rice harvests fall by about a third. But overall food production in the country is expected to be satisfactory thanks to favourable weather and increased use of high-yielding rice seeds, says the joint report from WFP and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), released in late January.

Yet many states are experiencing food deficits because of regional disparities and limited agricultural and financial resources.

Almost 35 percent of Burmese children under the age of five are underweight, according to the U.N. Development Programme. The WFP/FAO report says more than 5 million people live below the food poverty line, and WFP is providing food aid to around 2.6 million people across the country.

Emergency food assistance is still needed in many areas including the cyclone-affected Irrawaddy Delta, the report says. Other priority regions are Chin and northern Rakhine states in the west, where rights groups say ethnic groups suffer abuses at the hands of the military junta.

Human Rights Watch released a report last month about the mainly Christian Chin people, saying hundreds of thousands have fled Myanmar for fear of persecution by the government only to face discrimination and abuse in neighbouring India. India denies the charge.

In remote Chin, a rat infestation triggered by bamboo flowering in early 2007 has affected food supplies, the report says. Kaye told AlertNet that the state, the poorest in Myanmar, is “very poorly served by development assistance and there’s been limited support from the government.”

Northern Rakhine is home to the Rohingyas, an oppressed Muslim minority who have recently turned up on the shores of Thailand and Indonesia with tales of abuse by both the Thai and Myanmar militaries. The Thai army has admitted to towing hundreds of Rohingya far out in the Andaman Sea on boats before cutting them adrift.

The WFP/FAO report says food security and malnutrition levels in Rakhine deserve “immediate humanitarian attention.”

An earlier WFP assessment in June found the cost of rice had increased 75 percent compared to the previous year, and more than half of the population was drinking water from an unprotected source.

“The restrictions on the movement of people, goods and commodities in northern Rakhine state are really at the forefront of the reasons why levels of food insecurity are what they are,” Kaye said.

There are a number of regions where further analysis is needed, he added. WFP is negotiating with the U.N Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to conduct a nutrition survey in northern Rakhine, and there will be a more detailed assessment in Chin in March.

In areas affected by the cyclone, usually the food basket of the country, food production will likely take some time to recover. Nine months into the response to the crisis, agriculture is the most cash-starved sector, receiving less than a third of required funds, according to the United Nations.

United Nations Worried Over Nigeria’s Donation To Myanmar

From Laolu Akande New York

NIGERIA’S donation of a whopping $500,000 to the military junta in Myanmar few weeks ago is raising questions at the United Nations Secretariat in New York. An official of the Presidency arrived New York two days to Christmas to deliver the check at a hurriedly put together bilateral meeting between the Nigerian Ambassador, Prof. Joy Ugwu, and her Myanmar counterpart at the UN building.

But for the invitation to few members of the UN press, the event would have passed unnoticed and branded a secret deal. Even Nigeria’s former Foreign Affairs Minister who is a UN’s top official on Myanmar was not aware of the donation. A source at the Nigerian mission disclosed that even top Nigerian diplomats at the UN could could not explain the transaction any better than, that the whole affair was an “order from the headquarters (Abuja).”

Professor Ogwu only said that the money was Nigeria’s own contribution to the “ongoing relief efforts in the country, following the devastation caused by cyclone Nargis in May 2008,” in Myanmar.

But observers are however wondering why Nigeria’s own contribution came some six months after the tragedy and why a presidency official had to be specifically detailed to deliver the cheque instead of any of the senior Nigerian diplomats in New York. The other question is why the Federal Government chose to make the money directly available to the Myanmar government when the UN had set up a special fund to warehouse international donations to help victims of the Myanmar cyclone.

Media reports quoted Ambassador Joy Ogwu as saying UN Special Envoy on Myanmar, Nigeria’s Professor Ibrahim Gambari had no role to play in the donation. Gambari’s office at the UN also confirmed this saying he “had no prior knowledge of this transaction or the motive, if any, on the part of the Nigerian Government,” adding however that Professor Gambari does not object to the donation

A reporter with Inner City Press in New York, Lee reported that, “Nigeria gave its money directly, in US dollars, and apparently with no requirement to report back on how the funds are used. This is the type of hard currency for which Senior General Than Shwe is desperate.” He wrote that Nigeria would be seen to be supporting a military dictator by making such a donation “with no strings attached.”

On ther hand, some transparency and accountability on how the money would be spent would have been possible had the money been donated through the United Nations. When contacted for comments, a top Nigerian diplomat simply said the Foreign Affairs Ministry wanted the money to be handed over to Myanmar directly.

Why Nigeria would seek to please one of the few remaining military tyranny in the world is an issue that baffles many at the UN. A retired top Nigerian diplomat who had represented the country at the UN said it is simply shocking that Nigeria would do such a thing without passing through the normal diplomatic channels of the United Nations, since it was the UN that had called for international support to Myanmar.

The Abuja dole is coming at when the the UN and the global community are telling the Myanmar military dictator to move faster with democratic reforms. For instance, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has postponed plans to visit the place and there are no scheduled visits in the foreseeable future by the UN Special Envoy Gambari, who has been working round the clock to advance democratic reforms in Myanmar.

Ki-Moon said last month at the UN that he was “disappointed by the unwillingness of the government of Myanmar (Burma) to deliver on its promises for democratic dialogue and the release of political prisoners.”

By donating half a million bucks to Myanmar and doing it without the knowledge of the UN, Nigeria may be indirectly courting the enmity of those in the international community who are insisting that an iron hand be applied on the Myanmar dictatorship. The timing of the donation according to a source is also an indication, of “bad planning” by the Foreign Affairs Ministry in view of mounting international against the military junta in Myanmar.

One report said that there are as many as 112 former heads of state and government from more than 50 countries urging the UN scribe to help to secure the release of all Burmese political prisoners by the end of the year 2008.

Led by Kjell Magne Bondevik, the former prime minister of Norway, the group told Ki-Moon that, “If the Burmese junta continues to defy the United Nations by refusing to make these releases by the end of the year (2008 ), we urge you to encourage the Security Council to take further concrete action to implement its call for the release of all political prisoners.”

The Federal Government of Nigeria made its donation of half a million dollars to Myanmar less than two weeks after these world leaders called for Security Council action against the Myanmar dictatorship.

What is more, the White House, last month, issued a statement urging the international community and the United Nations not to remain silent to oppressive, anti-democratic measures of the Burmese junta. The statement by Press Secretary Dana Perino, said “Brave Burmese patriots such as Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, and Htay Kywe were among those who have been sentenced to 65 years imprisonment for their peaceful participation in the August 2007 protests, in which Burmese citizens, including monks and activists, called on the regime to address the basic needs of the Burmese people.”

At the donation on December 23, Prof Ugwu said Nigeria took the “opportunity to express our unflinching solidarity with the government and people of Myanmar for the concrete actions being taken to address the sitution”- referring to the cyclone tragedy. There are also those who see the gesture as part of Nigeria’s support of the South to South Integration at the UN, which seek to encourage stronger ties among the less developed countries of the world.

UNICEF: Nearly 700,000 children still in need of assistance in post cyclone Myanmar

YANGON, GENEVA, 25 July 2008 – Close to three months after Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar, nearly 700,000 children under the age of 17 are still in need of longer term assistance, says UNICEF. An estimated 2.4 million people were affected by the cyclone which destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes, schools and health centres.

‘While we have seen a gradual improvement in the situation of children and have managed to avoid major disease outbreaks, we need to sustain our efforts so children and their families can make a complete recovery from the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Nargis,’ said Ramesh Shrestha UNICEF Representative in Myanmar.

UNICEF’s emergency operation in Myanmar has concentrated on immunization, education and reuniting separated children with their families. It has distributed education supplies such as ‘schools-in-a-box’, essential learning packages and recreational kits to children in the affected areas and set up temporary learning spaces when schools have been completely destroyed. UNICEF has so far registered 616 separated children and has set up a family tracing and interim community care system.

A recent UN/ASEAN report revealed the immense damage inflicted by Cyclone Nargis. Major findings include 700,000 homes, 75 per cent of health facilities, over 4,000 schools damaged or destroyed in the affected areas. In addition, the cyclone struck a severe blow to people’s livelihoods by flooding 600,000 hectares of agricultural land, killing up to 50 per cent of livestock in the affected areas, and destroying fishing boats, food stocks and agricultural implements. According to the report, the damages and losses amount to $4 billion.

In a recent appeal, UNICEF requested $90.7 million for its humanitarian operation until April 2009.