Depression and hunger stalk tsunami survivors<\/p>\n
Bill Tarrant, Lamteungoh, Aceh<\/p>\n
Putri's baby is big.<\/p>\n
At 4 kilograms, baby Angi is, in fact, huge by the natal
\nstandards of Indonesia -- all the more remarkable since her
\nmother has been living in a grim tsunami survivors' camp
\nthroughout her pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Born on Sept. 23, Angi is the first known baby conceived and
\nborn after the Dec. 26th tsunami that killed more than 170,000
\npeople and left half a million homeless in Indonesia's Aceh
\nprovince on the tip of northern Sumatra.<\/p>\n
Angi, who is being bottle-fed because her mother's tsunami
\nrations do not give her the strength to breast-feed, owes her
\nrobust health, at least in part, to a health clinic the
\nchildren's aid group Plan International set up in her village.<\/p>\n
Putri received vitamins, nutrient supplements and prenatal
\ncare from the clinic during her pregnancy. A Plan-trained midwife
\ndelivered Angi in the military-style barracks camp Putri's family
\nshares with scores of others.<\/p>\n
Plan says it has set up at least 50 primary care units in
\ntsunami-struck villages and distributed supplementary nutrient
\npackages to 160,000 children and pregnant women in Aceh.<\/p>\n
One of the great successes of the tsunami relief effort was
\nthat a feared second wave of deaths from diseases never happened.<\/p>\n
Depressed and anemic<\/p>\n
Groups such as Unicef, Save the Children, Oxfam and Plan among
\nothers moved quickly to set up clear water and sanitation systems
\nin camps housing more than a million tsunami survivors around the
\nIndian Ocean rim.<\/p>\n
Putri's baby is a welcome addition to the fishing village of
\nLamteungoh, where only 250 out of a population of around 3,000
\nsurvived the 10-meter high tsunami. As in so many other villages,
\nthree to four times as many women and girls than men were killed
\nin Lamteungoh.<\/p>\n
While baby Angi is fine, her parents are struggling.<\/p>\n
\"Most pregnant women here are anemic so they need vitamin
\nsupplements,\" said 27-year-old midwife, Dassy Handayani. \"They
\nalso need a lot of moral support. They get depressed about
\nraising their babies in tsunami camps.\"<\/p>\n
The tsunami took Putri's eldest daughter, Arlisa Putri, 11.
\nBut two other daughters, Surya Pertiwi, 6, and Sri Rejeki, 3,
\nsurvived.<\/p>\n
Putri clings to a notion that Arlisa somehow is still alive.<\/p>\n
\"I had a dream in the seventh month of my pregnancy that a
\nwhite man found her and took her back with him, a Canadian named
\nMichael. I want to believe this dream, but I'm not sure.\"<\/p>\n
Life in the camps is undoubtedly contributing to depression
\nspawned by tsunami trauma and loss of family members, homes and
\nvillage life, aid officials said.<\/p>\n
\"Most of the cases we're treating are either gastric, upper
\nrespiratory or headaches,\" said doctor Mira of the British-based
\nIslamic Relief Agency.<\/p>\n
\"We have to do more research, but a lot of these cases seem to
\nbe psychosomatic,\" said Mira, who like many Indonesians uses one
\nname. \"Most of the people are healthy but feel like they're
\nsick.\"<\/p>\n
The new United Nations Recovery Coordinator for Aceh, Eric
\nMorris, said moving the 67,500 people still living in tents into
\nintermediate shelters is the biggest priority, going into the
\nrainy season.<\/p>\n
\"And probably conditions in some of those barracks are
\ndeteriorating, as well,\" Morris said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Food running out?<\/p>\n
The World Food Program (WFP) is feeding around a half-million
\npeople in Indonesia alone, including nearly 100,000 still living
\nin tattered tents.<\/p>\n
But the minimum rations of rice, cooking oil and canned fish
\ndistributed once a month to tsunami camps were never meant to
\nmeet the full daily nutritional needs of recipients.<\/p>\n
People in camps frequently complain that for one reason or
\nanother they sometimes miss out on even that minimal dole.<\/p>\n
\"The WFP and NGOs have done an amazingly good job, but it is a
\nstaple diet and people do need to diversify their diet,\" Morris
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's tsunami reconstruction chief said he has appealed
\nto the WFP to keep the food distribution program through to the
\nend of next year to prevent malnutrition and related diseases.<\/p>\n
\"But should the WFP board not approve the request, or the
\ninternational community not fund it, Aceh will go back to facing
\na humanitarian disaster of immense proportions,\" Kuntoro
\nMangkusubroto, head of Aceh's Reconstruction and Rehabilitation
\nAgency (BRR), said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\"There is a perception that the emergency conditions have
\npassed because we're now in the reconstruction phase. This is
\nwrong. The problems are so great, the humanitarian needs are so
\nimmense, that the emergency continues.\"<\/p>\n
More than 232,000 people were killed or left missing across a
\ndozen Indian Ocean nations after a 9.15 magnitude earthquake, the
\nstrongest in four decades, unleashed the most devastating tsunami
\non record.<\/p>\n
REUTERS<\/p>\n
GetRTR 3.00 -- OCT 18, 2005 07:57:37<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/depression-and-hunger-stalk-tsunami-survivors-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }