Amid Aceh's horrors, refugees most fear the sea
Amid Aceh's horrors, refugees most fear the sea
Dan Eaton and Achmad Sukarsono, Reuters, Banda Aceh, Aceh
Eka Irmaingsih, 25, sees corpses strewn amid the rubble of this tsunami-ravaged city, people dying of horrific wounds, crying orphans. But what she fears most is the sea.
"I don't fear the corpses, but I'm sacred of the sea," Eka said at a sprawling refugee camp in Banda Aceh, "ground zero" for the Dec. 26 tsunami spawned by the strongest earthquake in 40 years about 150 kms (93 miles) off the city's shores.
"Before the tragedy, I loved the beach. I liked to stroll along the port with my husband. Now it's a frightening area," said the former resident of the city's waterfront area, whose husband and their two children were among the lucky survivors.
"I prefer a new place. The old place is too scary," she said, as she washed the two children with what she said was purified water.
In another corner of the camp housing up to 2,000 survivors of the calamity that killed more than 100,000 people in Aceh on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island, rough justice is being dispensed.
Shivering, and bearing the marks of a beating, a young man in his 20s, accused of stealing a handphone, is made to wear a cardboard sign around his neck that reads: "I am a thief."
Dozens of children dance around him, chanting "thief, thief, thief" as Indonesian soldiers armed with assault rifles watch impassively.
"He's better off dead," muttered one resident of the camp, which consists of rows and rows of multi-colored plastic and canvas tents and where the ground is mud and strewn with rubbish.
Indonesia's Health Ministry said on Saturday about 77,700 people are missing, and thousands are being treated at hospitals, indicating the death toll could climb.
The United Nations and Indonesian authorities have begun preparing relocation camps that could eventually hold up to 500,000 people while new permanent communities are built to replace towns and villages that have vanished.
Drive south from Banda Aceh and the road just stops.
Ahead lies territory whose features have been erased -- just like the hopes and plans of hundreds of thousands of its residents left homeless by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Pre-tsunami maps of these parts no longer apply. There is water where once was land, flat earth where once was a town. Plans are now being laid for new communities and new names on maps.
"If I went back, I don't know if I could even find my street. Nothing's there. If I was to say 'that land is mine', I couldn't prove it. Where are the boundaries?" said Budi, 50, of Banda Aceh, waiting for a military flight to the city of Medan, 450 km (280 miles) to the southeast.
In Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of 300,000 people, a line was carved diagonally, southwest to northeast, by the massive waves.
North of the line, roughly half of this city -- known by Indonesians as "The Veranda of Mecca" because its staunchly Muslim population faces the Arabian peninsula across the Indian Ocean -- is a wasteland.
No homes. No streets. Just a flat expanse of mud, splintered wood and twisted metal as far as the eye can see.
The United Nations and Indonesian government hope to open the first relocation camps by next week, starting with four in the Banda Aceh area.
"We will start with temporary relocations. But, at the same time, we have plans to set up community development settlements, compounds for the more permanent settlement for the internally displaced persons," said chief social welfare minister Alwi Shihab.
David Agnew, president of UNICEF Canada, said on Saturday the agency's priority was to reunite children in the camps with their families. "We had three success stories yesterday."
He said UNICEF had started trauma counseling for children and was in the process of registering children to prevent trafficking and haphazard adoption
"I think all the signs are the vultures are circling," Agnew said.
Still there are far more parents bereft of their children than orphans in the camp -- UNICEF estimates at least one-third of the 156,108 confirmed dead in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster were children.
Muslihapman, 13, who lost both of his parents, says he still thinks about the terrifying minutes caught up in the waves, but adds: "I still want to go to school.
Ibnu Katsir, in his mid-30s, lives in a tent with 40 other people. He, too, hopes to find a new life well away from the scary sea. "If we can move to a new place, we will be happier -- if we can move to a new place that would be better and safer."