Typhoon bandits: How British aid ton thousands of victims in the Philippines disaster has been stolen by thieves Vital food, shelter and emergency supplies are not getting through to needy Local officials and village chiefs are stockpiling donated goods Residents say the poorest are furious over being denied supplies The old lady clutches her granddaughter's hand and weeps as she describes the torment of watching dozens of foreign aid trucks rumble past her ruined shack every day - while she struggles to survive with no food and no roof over her head. "I am so unhappy," says farmer's widow Nena Abing, 78, whose home in the Philippines was destroyed in the November 8 super-typhoon. We have had no help at all from anyone - no food and no shelter. I have to go up the mountainside to dig up vegetables to eat. Foreign aid, including much of the £70 million-plus pledged by Britain, has been pouring into this benighted eastern corner of the Philippines in the five weeks since it was struck by Haiyan, the most powerful typhoon to ever make landfall, killing 6,000 in its trail. Hope: A child plays in the rain around the UK Aid tents which are pitched in the town of Paku Kinapundan, Samar Province, Philippines But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that vital food, shelter and emergency supplies are still failing to get through to the people who need them - many of whom are still homeless and starving. Last week this newspaper revealed how foreign aid was being stockpiled and diverted by corrupt local officials and how a British expatriate had received death threats after challenging the handling of aid in Hernani, Eastern Samar. A day later, Oxfam admitted there were "serious gaps" in the month-old relief effort while the UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said she was concerned aid was still not reaching people in remote areas. More than £250 million has been pledged to the international relief effort. But in interviews with people in the provinces of Samar and Leyte last week, we were told of acute food shortages and a lack of shelter in towns and villages within easy reach of the hub of the global relief effort in Tacloban. An Army Air Corps Lynx helicopter airlifts aid to the Philippines from the deck of HMS Illustrious In village after village, those who had lost their homes and livelihoods told us they knew foreign aid had arrived - but that it was being unevenly or unfairly distributed, leaving some of the poorest and worst affected to suffer. Food and shelter equipment originally reached Ms Abing's district weeks ago. But in a scenario described with appalling regularity in Leyte and Samar, getting aid to the affected areas is only part of the problem. Wrestling it from the clutches of local officials - the mayors and village elders known as barangay captains - was sometimes proving difficult. Ms Abing's home in the mountain village of Visaris is close to a main road from Ormoc port. Within days of the typhoon, goods were being transported to the shattered city of Tacloban, where thousands of aid workers are now based. But by Friday afternoon, the only help Ms Abing had received was from the crew of a passing aid truck who took pity on her and threw out a bundle of old rice sacks she used to replace her missing roof. "Our barangay captain has a list of favoured people who he will give food and relief goods to, but I am not on that list so I get nothing," she said. The captains are only nice to you and they only look after you when they want your vote. In a village on the other side of the mountain, mother-of-nine Bienvenida Celelonio told us: "The captain keeps most of the food for himself and only gives a little of it out to people like us. Why would he waste it on us when we are poor and have no voice? In Palo - a typhoon-shattered community six miles from Tacloban that last week had a fleeting visit from pop star Justin Bieber - families living just off the main road said they had received no foreign aid. "We only get a tiny amount of food from the local government - 1kg of rice and two tins of sardines per household once a week," said Brigida Abella, 72, who lives with five members of her family in a house left barely standing. Meanwhile, in the San Miguel district - 30 minutes" drive inland from Tacloban - graffiti across a food van in the middle of the village says accusingly: "We need food, Mayor." "People are angry," said resident Christine Lagarde, 29. The food is coming in from foreign aid agencies but the officials have been keeping it for themselves. We've heard that they're storing it in their own homes while we don't have enough to eat. When we ask our mayor about it, she told us to be patient. She said everyone will be fed - eventually. On Friday afternoon, the mayor, Cheryl Enrica Esperas, was at the municipal hall presiding over the delivery and distribution to a large crowd of villagers of a lorry load of sanitation kits from a US charity. Typhoon victims rush to get relief goods from a U.S. Navy Sea Hawk helicopter in the devastated town of Salcedo, Samar island province, Philippines When I asked her about the residents" complaints, smartly dressed Ms Esperas laughed and told me: "Please don't believe these people. The food aid is not in my house. I couldn't eat it all myself. That slogan was put up there by my political opponents who lost to me in the election six months ago. But along the battered coast we heard similar complaints. In Marabut, mother-of-six Evelyn Piniada, 49, said: "Sometimes the local government bring food once a week. But when they come, what they bring is barely enough for one day. Our government has abandoned us. We only get a tiny amount of food from the local government - 1kg of rice and two tins of sardines per household once a week Brigida Abella, survivor Further north in Hernani, one of the worst-hit towns on the eastern seaboard, most homes have lost their roofs, and corrugated tin sheets from private donors are being brought in to rebuild homes. But residents told us that officials organised a raffle in the village square last Tuesday to decide who would get a new roof. "They took the roofs they wanted for themselves first and then they raffled the rest as if they were doing us a big favour," complained mother-of-three Fatima Barcial. It was an insult. British relief workers in Tacloban confirmed there were problems with local officials holding up or diverting aid. One worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "There are a lot of good barangay captains out there. Unfortunately there are a lot of bad ones too. Oxfam's spokesman in Tacloban, Ian Bray, said the charity had been "meticulous" in its distribution of aid and monitoring of where it went to avoid abuse. But he added that the scale of the disaster meant it was inevitable not everyone would receive the help they needed. A spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee said it did not distribute aid through government channels in the Philippines. On the ground, charities worked with local officials to get aid to communities, it added. But our tents have made it through While some international aid is being blocked or failing to get through, the Union Jack is flying in villages along the typhoon-battered coast of the eastern Philippines. Mini "tent cities" of heavy-duty green tents stamped with "UK Aid - from the British people" have sprung up along the shattered coastlines of Samar and Eastern Samar, offering shelter to some of the four million people made homeless. The tents were delivered to families who had been sleeping in the open or crammed into the homes or relatives or neighbours for three weeks. Relief: Children play in the UK Aid tents which are pitched in the town of Paku Kinapundan, Samar Province In one village, Paku Kinapundan, 100 British tents line the hillside running down to the coast. Britain has been good to us. Before this, we had no home left," said Maria Paz Marawizi, 25, who is living with her twin five-month-old daughters and two older children in one tent. The British aid workers came directly to our village and helped us put up the tents. It only took one day and they were gone. "Our house was destroyed and we were sleeping on the floor of my relatives" house with 15 other people." In neighbouring Viga, the British tents have been used as homes and as a temporary community office to process claims from residents. "In the next village, they have tents from the Chinese Red Cross but we are happy because the British tents are better quality," said a village elder in Viga." A total of 3,317 tents have been delivered to the Philippines by Britain along with 18,230 hygiene kits, 42,459 plastic sheets, 20,912 shelter kits and 27,000 blankets.