U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Myanmar today in an attempt to persuade the country’s ruling military junta to soften their position regarding the foreign aid workers who are waiting at the country’s borders to offer their assistance to those in need after Cyclone Nargis struck.

Ban saw the flooded rice fields and the wrecked homes on Thursday when he took a helicopter and toured the Irrawaddy Delta, the region which suffered the most when the tropical storm hit mainland.

When he visited the Kyondah relief camp 75 km (46 miles) south of Yangon, the local officials told the U.N. Secretary-General that the situation is under control, a thing very hard to believe considering the fact that Myanmar hasn’t even got enough medicine for its people who are threatened by illnesses such as diarrhea and dysentery.

The powerful cyclone left 2.4 million people without shelter and killed nearly 134,000 people. Only a quarter of those in need of aid were reached by the relief teams.

"The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to help Myanmar," Ban told one woman in the relief camp, Reuters reported.

The U.N. Secretary-General said the purpose of his visit was to somehow convince the generals who head the junta to open up to foreign aid and not only to the aid provided by the members of ASEAN as they promised a few days ago during an emergency meeting in Singapore.

Ban also plans to convince Myanmar’s rulers to support the joint United Nations and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) donor-pledging conference in Yangon on Sunday.

Myanmar has allowed foreign aid to pass its borders but to a small extent. Although several nations, including the US, managed to send aid supplies, this amounts to only 20 percent of the needed supplies.

The U.N. Secretary-General expressed his optimism that the Burmese government will grant visas to the foreign aid workers who are still waiting for that move at the country’s borders.

The U.N. also estimated that nearly 1.6 million to 2.5 million survivors need urgent help consisting in food, water, shelter and medicine.