Battle to get aid to Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Flood-stricken Bangladeshis will receive their first major overseas food aid deliveries on Wednesday after the worst rains in six years killed over 600 and displaced millions of people.
The head of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Tony Maryon, told CNN Wednesday the floods had created major delays in delivering aid.
While water levels were now receding, Maryon warned monsoon rains had only just begun and that the forecast for more rains was "really quite grim."
He said water-borne diseases following the flooding were "becoming rampant" and the need to deliver medical aid to the millions of displaced people was paramount.
That warning comes as Bangladesh's Food and Disaster Management Minister, Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusouf, told reporters his impoverished nation would need need food aid for 20 million people, or one-seventh of its population, over the next five months.
The floods, the worst since 1998, inundated about 60 percent of the countryside, ruining crops and destroying jobs.
"We estimate that up to 20 million people will be needing food assistance from the government until next December," the minister said, according to The Associated Press.
"We are determined to take care of them."
He said starvation was unlikely, however, because, "We are getting international assistance in addition to our own food stocks."
Despite efforts by the government and international aid agencies, millions of Bangladeshis face a miserable future.
Flood victim Henna Arra's home was washed away 12 days ago. She and her family are now living in a shelter under the stands of a soccer stadium in the capital, Dhaka.
"We are suffering a lot. We have to share space with strangers. Also its hot and we are short of drinking water,'' she told CNN.
While those in the shelter are getting adequate food from the government, conditions are unhygienic and overcrowded and some children are beginning to show signs of skin diseases.
Moved by the plight of the flood victims, other Bangladeshis are doing all they can to help. Students at Dhaka University, spend hours rolling dough into the traditional South Asian bread called "rotis.''
"If we don't come forward to support our own people, who else will take that responsibility? All of us must do something now,'' Yasmin Sultana told CNN.
Those living in these shelters are grateful for all the help they're getting, but what really cuts their hearts into pieces, they say, is the misery they are continuing to endure.
"I can't even think of living here any more. I'm tired of these horrible conditions,'' Arra says.
Her six-month-old daughter, she says, deserves a better life.
CNN New Delhi Bureau Chief Satinda Bindra contributed to this report.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
