U.N. agency to resume Myanmar aid flights

ROME (Reuters) - The U.N. World Food Program said on Friday it would resume aid flights to cyclone-struck Myanmar, despite the military government's seizure of deliveries at Yangon airport.

"The World Food Program has decided to send in two relief flights as planned tomorrow, while discussions continue with the government of Myanmar on the distribution of the food that was flown in today, and not released to WFP," Nancy E. Roman, WFP's communications and public policy director, said in a statement.

The U.N. food agency had previously said it would suspend aid flights over the seizure on Friday.

The shipments of 38 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 95,000 people, were intended to be loaded on trucks and sent to the inundated Irrawaddy delta where most of the estimated 1.5 million victims of Cyclone Nargis need food, water and shelter.

Governments around the world have been pressing Myanmar's ruling generals to open the country's borders to desperately-needed assistance, but the Myanmar government has stated its preference through the state-run media to accept "relief in cash and kind" but not foreign aid workers.

The WFP said nearly all of the aid previously airlifted into the country on Thursday had already been delivered to the hardest hit areas. The shipment was enough to feed 21,000 people.

Another Rome-based U.N. agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, called for $10 million on Friday to assist poor farming and fishing communities hit by the cyclone.

"The hardest hit villages lost all their farming assets, as well as the food stored for the rest of the year," said Anne M. Bauer, Director, FAO Emergency Operations and Rehabilitation Division.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Dominic Evans)