A sister's search for beloved brother
A sister's search for beloved brother
By Stephen Collinson
DILI, East Timor (AFP): Amalia Rodrigues walks the ruined
streets of Dili day after day, desperately searching for the
young brother she fears was cut down in a hail of militia
bullets.
Behind her wide smile of welcome lies an agony of family
separation, death and uncertainty that aid workers say thousands
of East Timorese are living with.
"I think he must be dead," she says, blinking quickly as tears
well up in her eyes. "But I keep looking for him every day. I
heard he may have gone to Tibar," a small town close to Dili, she
said.
Amalia, 23, was separated from her 15-year-old brother
Marcello when militia fighters fired on a crowd in early
September, turning the seafront near the home of Bishop Carlos
Belo into a shooting range after East Timor voted for
independence.
With her parents and three sisters, Amalia then spent several
nights huddling in their Dili home before they were finally
discovered by members of the militias bent on emptying the city
of its population and destroying everything in their way.
As the family fled in terror, Amalia's sister-in-law Marcella
was shot dead.
"I try to sleep at night but I have the picture of my sister-
in-law in my head," she says. "We pray for her and my brother
every night."
As she struggles to cope with her own emotions, Amalia has had
to assume the burden of responsibility for the family.
Her traumatized parents spend day after day weeping for their
lost son.
After Marcella's death, the family joined the exodus of
refugees leaving Dili. In Baucau, East Timor's second city, they
escaped death again when gunmen fired into a crowd, killing two
people.
It was only when international peacekeepers drove militias out
of the capital that the family returned to their wrecked home.
"We are happy they came but we fear that the militias are
still hiding," Amalia said.
She is still haunted by visions of the frenzied, bloodshot
eyes of the gunmen that fired at her and her brother. "They had
bad blood in their eyes."
Despite her grief, Amalia's spirit has not been crushed. When
she speaks of her hopes for the nation East Timor is soon to
become, her eyes light up with hope and determination.
"We will have independence. We voted for it, we must have it,"
she says defiantly.
Amalia's suffering is mirrored all over East Timor. At the
headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in
Dili, more than 250 people queue every morning at a tracing
center for missing people.
They write their names on a small form and a message telling
missing relatives how to contact them.
Batches of cards are taken to camps in West Timor, where
around 250,000 East Timorese fled.
"This is one of our classic activities," said ICRC delegate
Ruth Kottmann.
"Refugees who reach the center are allowed a few minutes on a
satellite telephone to tell relatives in other parts of Indonesia
that they are alive.
Amalia says she will contact the center in case they can help
her find her missing brother.
She looks forward to the day when she can go back to her final
year of English studies at Dili university and become a teacher.
"I will look for him until I know whether he is dead or alive."