Greek aid flight departs for Burma | The Australian
Greek aid flight departs for Burma
From correspondents in Athens | May 09, 2008
A GREEK military plane left for Burma today loaded with humanitarian aid for victims of cyclone Nargis, the Greek airforce said, after the southeast Asian country approved the mission.
The Hercules C-130 transport plane was carrying tents, sheets, blankets and medicine donated by the Greek Red Cross and Greece-based non-governmental organisation World Pharmacists, the Greek foreign ministry said.
The Burmese military government has appeared reluctant to let in foreign aid after last week's devastating cyclone, with death toll estimates nearing 100,000.
Aid was only trickling in despite warnings that specialists were needed to deliver food and water through disaster zones strewn with rotting bodies, and it was unclear if the regime was giving visas to foreign aid staff.
The Greek flight will pass from Dubai and Calcutta before arriving in Rangoon, where it has received permission to land, the airforce said.
A second flight will likely follow on Saturday, carrying more medicine and bedclothes and a team of Greek doctors, Greek authorities said.
"There will be more aid missions with planes and containers," deputy foreign minister Petros Doukas told state television NET at Elefsis airfield outside Athens.
"We will do our duty. We are among the first four nations to send aid," he said.
Greece will also provide money through the United Nations World Food Programme.
Aid groups said the country needs hundreds of planes to cope with the effects of the cyclone, which barrelled into Burma last week, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory.
They said help was slowly arriving from Thailand, China and India, but not enough - and not quickly enough - for most of those in the stricken southwest Irrawaddy delta who saw their villages ripped apart or washed away.