U.N. Agency to Airlift 82 Tons of Emergency Medical Supplies to Burma

A U.N. relief agency said Saturday that it will airlift 82 tons of emergency medical supplies to Burma, where hospitals are struggling to cope with the casualty toll from a military crackdown on the opposition.

A spokesman for the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said $1 million worth of drugs and essential hospital equipment will be flown to Bangkok from Copenhagen on Tuesday for transshipment to Rangoon.

The spokesman said the supplies would be distributed directly to the five major hospitals in the Burmese capital, in particular Rangoon General Hospital. That facility has handled most of the casualties in the army’s attempt to crush popular protest against last Sunday’s coup led by the defense minister, Gen. Saw Maung, now prime minister and head of the military junta.

The army seized power after months of strikes and demonstrations to back demands for a multi-party democracy. Within hours, students and troops were fighting pitched battles and soldiers opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. At least 250 civilians were killed.

A foreign aid administrator said the hospitals had run out of supplies.

“Even the most basic supplies have run out, used up in the last round of fighting,” he said. “It’s a grim situation.”

In Rangoon, Burmese opposition leaders formed a united front Saturday and urged citizens to join a peaceful struggle against the military government.

It was the first formal attempt to group under one banner the millions of students, Buddhist monks, government workers, professionals and others who took to the streets nationwide in the past two months to demand freedom.

A statement from opposition leaders announced the formation of the National United Front for Democracy.

“The basic objective of this organization is to achieve a genuinely democratic government,” said the statement by Aung Gyi, Tin Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi. “The spontaneous people’s struggle for democracy, starting from the students’ struggles, has developed into a national movement.”

The statement did not spell out a specific strategy. The main anti-government activity is a general strike that began Aug. 8 and paralyzed the government.

State-run Radio Rangoon said Saturday that five more people were killed when security forces stopped a group looting a warehouse Friday.

It said that in Mandalay, the second-largest city, security forces arrested 50 people while breaking up a protest center at a monastery early Saturday morning.