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YANGON : The Red Cross will reopen its field offices in Myanmar after the country's military-run government agreed to reconsider an earlier decision to close them, an official has said.
"The government wants to reconsider the decision and we are waiting for more details from authorities," said Thierry Ribaux, the deputy head of the Red Cross in Yangon. He declined to give further details.
The agreement came from a meeting last week between military officials and the representative of the Red Cross in Myanmar, Ribaux said.
The aid agency also sought the military's permission to resume its prison visits during the meeting, but military officials rejected the appeal, he said. The prison visits have been suspended since late 2005.
The United Nations estimates there are some 1,100 political prisoners in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.
They include democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, 61, who has been under house arrest for most of the past 17 years in Yangon.
In October, the military regime ordered the Red Cross to close the five offices in Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Hpa-an, Taunggyi and Kyaing Tong.
Apart from central Mandalay, the remaining four areas were located along the Thai-Myanmar border.
Between 1999 and late 2005, the Red Cross made 453 visits to prisons and labour camps across Myanmar, one of the world's poorest and most isolated nations and with a dismal human rights record.
The Red Cross said it had 332 staff in Myanmar, including 54 expatriates, last year. But due to the ongoing obstacles, their numbers have since dwindled to 220 including 20 expatriates.
- AFP/ir
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