Food crisis spreads in Maluku
Food crisis spreads in Maluku
JAKARTA (JP): The number of villages facing food shortages in
Southeast Maluku increased from the reported 130 last week --
affecting 81,845 people -- to 149 villages, Antara reported
yesterday.
The news agency quoted Poli Davids, an official at the local
social services office, as saying yesterday that 149 out of 424
villages and subdistricts in the regency had been reported to be
facing food shortages due to the long drought.
The ministry of social services had since November distributed
11.25 tons of rice for the 16,241 families or 81,845 people in
the 130 villages in seven of the eight districts in the regency.
Aru district is one of the areas unaffected by the drought, as
it had a large stock of sago which the local people had been
processing into various kinds of food to replace rice.
Poli said the ministry's rice stock in the logistic depots in
Tual, the capital of Southeast Maluku, had all been used up.
"We are really grateful because the provincial office of the
Ministry of Social Services had prepared five tons of rice to be
sent to drought-affected areas soon," he said.
Food shortages in the regency have forced thousands of locals
to foray for forest fruits and yams to survive. Poli Davids said
491 families, comprising 2,134 people, in eleven villages on
Marsela Island, Pulau-pulau Babar district, had been eating biji
pauh (a variety of mango found in the forest).
The social services office recently sent 2.6 tons of rice to
the district.
The villagers in Leti, Moa and Lakor (Lamola) districts have
also been forced to eat ancak (the fruit of a banyan tree), and
other forest fruits known locally as koli and kumbili.
An Antara dispatch from Wamena in the famine-stricken
Jayawijaya regency in Irian Jaya said that National Police Chief
Gen. Dibyo Widodo has sent cash, food and medicine for the local
people.
Irian Jaya Police Chief Brig. Gen. Hotman Siagian delivered
the aid to Jayawijaya Regent J.B. Wenas yesterday at the disaster
relief operation command post.
"This assistance is an expression of the police chief's
concern for the people in the disaster-stricken area," said
Siagian when handing over the Rp 3 million (US$600), one ton of
food stuff, and 500 kilograms of medicine.
Drought-related diseases such as diarrhea and malaria have
claimed 657 lives, as reported by the media, in four regencies in
Irian Jaya while food shortages there are threatening 150,000
other people, officials have said. (swe)