Human rights groups lashed out at Myanmar's military leaders for evicting cyclone refugees from relief camps and forcing them back to their isolated, storm-shattered homes.The US-based Human Rights Watch said in a release on Saturday that hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced people had also been expelled from schools, monasteries and public buildings.In the nation's biggest city, Yangon, there were eyewitness reports of one eviction from a Christian church. A UN official said yesterday the government was making cyclone survivors leave the camps and "dumping" them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies.Another group, Refugees International, said authorities appeared to be trying to get villagers back to their land to begin tending their fields and reviving agriculture."While agriculture recovery is indeed vital, forcing people home without aid makes it harder for aid agencies to reach them with assistance," it said.US Defence Secretary Robert Gates added his voice to critics of the junta's handling of the humanitarian crisis, saying that obstruction of international efforts to help cyclone victims cost "tens of thousands of lives."With US ships off Myanmar's coast poised to leave because they have been blocked from delivering assistance to the ravaged country, Gates said in a speech in Singapore the US will continue to try to get aid in."The government is moving people unannounced," he said, adding that authorities were ``dumping people in the approximate location of the villages, basically with nothing."After his statement was reported, UNICEF issued a statement saying the remarks referred to "unconfirmed" reports by relief workers on the relocation of displaced people affected by the May 2-3 storm.
