BANGKOK — Foreign relief workers began filtering into Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta on Monday as aid agencies tested whether the ruling military junta would keep its promise to permit a major international effort to help the 2.5 million victims of Cyclone Nargis.
UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, said it had received permission over the weekend to send six foreign technical experts to work in the delta region of Myanmar, also known as Burma, which had been off-limits to foreign aid workers.
On Monday, the U.N. World Food Program deployed several international staff members to the area.
Meanwhile, a foreign doctor and sanitation specialist for a British charity who tried to travel to the delta without permission were turned back about 30 miles outside Yangon.
Aid agencies are cautiously optimistic about their prospects. Their mission is all the more important, they say, because Myanmarese aid workers, who have been running relief efforts for the past three weeks, are overstretched.
A fire Monday morning at the Myanmarese Embassy in Bangkok, where many aid workers are awaiting visas to enter the country, forced the visa section to close temporarily, adding to confusion and anxiety.
Cyclone Nargis and the subsequent tidal surge killed about 78,000 people and left an additional 56,000 missing.
