DaytonDailyNews.com

FAIRBORN — Even though his family was spared the ravages of Cyclone Nargis, Wright State graduate student Kyaw Soe says he can't take his eyes off the televised reports of conditions in his native Myanmar.

"I have been watching all day and all night. I even cried this morning to see the kids who have died ... stacking the bodies," he said Friday, May 9. "Things are not getting better there. They are getting worse."

It's been a week since the cyclone left as many as 100,000 dead and a million homeless in the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, but Myanmar's secretive military regime continues to resist outside humanitarian aid.

Shipments remain bottlenecked and most foreign aid workers still lack visas, the Christian Science Monitor reported Friday. U.N. officials say as many as 1.5 million people face death from starvation and disease if the government doesn't cooperate soon with relief efforts.

"I know my government very well. They want the people to think that only they can help them," said Soe, 25, who is earning his master's degree in electrical engineering at Wright State.

Soe's parents and four siblings live 350 miles north of the capital city of Rangoon, far from the devastated coastal areas. He said he talked to his family on Thursday and "they are fine."

Soe plans to return to Myanmar in July and spend a month working in the ravaged areas.

He said he hopes that Americans will continue to reach out to the victims despite the frustrations of dealing with the regime.

"I want the American people to please help as much as they can," he said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2437 or jdebrosse@DaytonDaily

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