United Nations Radio

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in Myanmar, where he has met with the Prime Minister and visited the Irrawaddy delta, which was devastated by Cyclone Nargis at the beginning of the month, leaving 2.4 million people destitute.

The United Nations and the broader international community have not forgotten you and will go all out to help you. This is the message Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly told the Cyclone Nargis survivors, family by family, camp by camp in his more-than-three-hour inspection-tour of the hardest-hit areas in Irrawaddy Delta on Thursday. Two helicopters took the Secretary-General to have a bird-view at low latitude of a vast expanse of land where original homes were blown away and simple tents were sporadically set up. They then landed at two camps where hundreds of the homeless were sheltered.

"The main purpose of my coming to Myanmar is to demonstrate my solidarity and firm support of the United Nations as well as broader international community to your people. And I am quite confidant that you will be able to overcome this tragedy."

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spent an hour and half with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein in Yangon before he took the inspection tour of the cyclone hit areas, urging him to be more flexible when accepting international aid and to grant more accessibility to international aid workers.

On Friday, he is scheduled to meet Myanmar leader Senior General Than Shwe, who has refused to talk to him directly after the disaster took its heavy toll early this month.

Maoqi Li, reporting for UN Radio from Yangon, Myanmar.

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