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Copyrighted material for nonprofit educational use only. Myanmar children need aid to ease suffering-UNICEF YANGON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said children's rights should come before politics and that ``unattached and generous humanitarian assistance'' was needed to improve the plight of children in military-ruled Myanmar. Juan Aguita Leon, UNICEF representative in Myanmar, said that of 1.3 million children born in Myanmar each year, more than 92,500 died before they reached their first birthday and 138,000 others died before the age of five. ``Many more will become ill from acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, tuberculosis or malaria. More than one in three children under five is malnourished,'' he added, saying that many of the diseases were preventable. ``Not acting decisively...on the side of Government on one hand, and the international community on the other, will condemn entire generations of children to live in poverty, misery and despair,'' Leon told a seminar in Yangon on Wednesday. International condemnation of Myanmar's military since it killed thousands to crush a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 has greatly limited humanitarian assistance to the country, which spent 32 percent of its national budget last year on defence and just two percent on health and 14 percent on education. Opponents argue aid to Myanmar will bolster the rule of the generals who ignored national election results 10 years ago when the opposition National League for Democracy won by a landslide. But Leon, in the interests of humanity, urged that political squabbles be put aside. He said HIV/AIDS threatened large and increasing segments of the population, while pregnancy and giving birth remained life-threatening tasks for women, particularly in rural areas. Estimates of maternal deaths ranged from 100 to 580 per 100,000 live births. Leon said many women also died from unsafe abortions. He said education had been hit by declining resources, minimal professional support and deteriorating learning conditions, which meant only one in four teenagers enrolled in school. He said Myanmar needed to strengthen protection of vulnerable children and women and substantially improve social services, objectives UNICEF was willing to help achieve. ``But for doing this, UNICEF and other U.N. agencies and NGOs need the unambiguous support and commitment from the international community,'' he said. A U.N. official estimated that Myanmar received just $40 million in U.N. official development assistance in 1998. The United States and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on Myanmar and cut aid programmes because of the military government's human rights record and its failure to democratise. 01:34 02-03-00 Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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