எனது வயிற்றை நிரப்புவதற்கு எதாவது......

பட்டினியால் வாடிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் சிறார்கள் சாப்பாட்டுக்காக பிச்சை கேட்கிறார்கள் அல்லது சேற்றுக்குள் மீன் பிடி வலைகளை வீசி இழுக்கிறார்கள்... என்ன பரிதாபமான நிலமை....

'Just anything to fill my belly...'

KYAKUTAN, Myanmar (AFP) - The few houses that weren't washed away in this ruined shantytown are surrounded by muddy, black water. Starving children beg for food - or drag their fishing nets through the sludge.

"My family has no money to buy rice," says nine-year-old Faroe, hoping a foreign visitor can give her any kind of food.

"I have not eaten today."

As she speaks, a four-year-old named Tayuma races over with her hands outstretched.

"I am hungry," she says. "I just want some rice and fish. Just anything to fill my belly."

Already one of the poorest countries on the planet, Myanmar has been hard hit by Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 60,000 people dead or missing and an estimated 1.5 million in dire need of emergency supplies.

More than a week after tragedy struck, survivors in remote places like the fishing village of Kyakutan south of the main city of Yangon are sinking ever deeper into despair.

"We have not received any food today," says Khin Ma, her face etched with fatigue as she breast-feeds her six-month-old baby who looks ill and weak.

"My husband has gone fishing. Hopefully he will return with some catch."

There is no food, clean water or electricity - and no sign of when the government, which has refused to allow in foreign relief workers to help distribute supplies, will bring enough aid for the people. The only thing sure to come soon is disease.

There is no sanitation and very little shelter from the tropical sun, or occasional bouts of new rain - downpours that seem to be adding insult to injury.

People are washing their clothes in the same dirty water in which they hope to find some fish to eat. The smell of decay is overpowering.

Aid groups say that if villages like Kyakutan do not get help soon, more people will start to die.

A villager named Mashwe says that she has been using rusty drums to collect the new rain water, but they have no tablets to purify the water.

"The children and women are hungry. The babies are crying all the time," she says. "We depend on donations. Today, no one has come.

To try to repair what's left, villagers are scavenging for every piece of timber they can rustle up. Some use mud-stained leaves to put a roof on a new makeshift shelter.

"The rainy season is coming," says one man, asking for materials to help build new huts: nails, hammers, sheets of zinc - anything.

"It's raining every day now," he says. "I fear the children will fall sick."

As the full scope of the destruction becomes known, and the government continues its slow-moving aid operation, anger at the regime is growing.

But some here say that the country's long-suffering people are used to hardship and that, in keeping with their Buddhist faith, have already accepted that their military rulers will not deliver the help they need.

"This is a natural disaster. There is nothing we can do," says one monk at a damaged temple nearby.

"We have to accept it as fate."