Tightened Government Security Hampering But Not Stopping Tsunami Aid to Aceh
Tightened security measures governing movements of international humanitarian agencies continue to challenge post-tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia's Aceh province
Tightened security measures governing movements of international humanitarian agencies continue to challenge post-tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia's Aceh province, according to an international humanitarian agency with longstanding presence in the predominantly Muslim nation. However, despite obstacles, humanitarian aid workers are continuing to deliver emergency relief supplies and trauma care to survivors, and proceeding with initial projects to support sustainable, long-term recovery.
As aid agencies now assist Aceh's residents and thousands of displaced survivors with sanitation and clean water systems construction projects, the grim work of finding and accounting for the dead is still going on, global humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) reported Monday.
CWS, which is focusing on long-term recovery programs throughout the tsunami-impacted Indian Ocean region, said that three of its trucks arrived in Banda Aceh from Medan between Friday, Feb. 25, and Monday, Feb. 28, containing medicines, tents, mosquito nets, mattresses, relief kits, and CWS Blankets, Baby Kits, and Heart-to-Heart Kids Kits.
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CWS Emergency Response Program Director Rick Augsburger, who returned from a second assessment mission in the province's capital of Banda Aceh last week, reported that two CWS truckloads of relief supplies were stopped by local soldiers at Peralak, a town south of Lhok Seumawe, on their way from Medan to Banda Aceh on Tuesday, Feb. 22, with instructions that no nighttime travel of relief goods should be undertaken.
On February 20, an Indonesian soldier was killed and seven others wounded when gunfire broke out between guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement-GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) and Indonesian forces along Aceh's west coast – just as the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration was hauling goods and supplies to survivors.
Augsburger said the highway from Meulaboh to the local airport had been open to date, with no stopping or inspection of aid vehicles by Indonesian troops. "But, CWS staff in Medan is reporting that it is important to keep authorities posted on any travel in the area," he said. Prior to the tsunami disaster, the Indonesian government and the rebels in Aceh province were in ongoing conflict. When the tsunami hit, GAM had declared a unilateral cease-fire.
"The disaster and immediate rescue work brought a necessary and apparently temporary lull to the unrest," Augsburger said. "We are fortunate in that the CWS staff here are mostly Indonesian, and we've been operating here in Aceh for 24 years, which has greatly facilitated our own response efforts."
Meanwhile, CWS Associate Director for Emergency Response Programs Donna Derr, in Banda Aceh with Augsburger, said the Indonesian Red Cross and other organizations were still recovering and burying between 200 and 300 bodies a day.
While dead still being buried, “Signs of normal life... Routine is being re-established,” Derr said.
"But while the dead are still being buried the survivors go on and signs of normal life resuming give hope," Derr added. " An amazing amount of debris clean-up has been accomplished just in the weeks since I was last here. Many small businesses have re-opened and the outdoor markets are open and busy again."
Derr said, "It was encouraging to see so many of the children back in school, even though many of them were at schools set up in camps for displaced people. Routine is being re-established."
Derr said CWS Indonesia's services continue to include trauma care and the establishment of community-based psychosocial support programs "to ensure that individuals and community are able to process their tragedies in a manner that best enables them to rebuild and re-enter their lives – with some sense of wholeness and strength, rather than persistent personal or communal fragility."
"CWS Indonesia's mental health specialists were in Jakarta last week," Derr said, "conducting professional training courses for additional team members. The need to expand these services is still great."
Elsewhere in the province, CWS reports that its teams continue to distribute relief supplies of health kits and high energy biscuits to displaced survivors in settlements in Aceh Besar and blankets to households in Kling Cot Aru village, Baitussalam sub-district (Aceh Besar district). The agency's Mobile Clinic continues to travel the province dispensing care, with plans for a supplemental feeding program for a thousand children in Aceh Besar district.
Meanwhile, Church World Service is continuing its $10 million fundraising appeal, with focus on long-term recovery programs throughout the tsunami-impacted Indian Ocean region.
