'I'm Alive!' project continues through dailies
Ati Nurbaiti The Jakarta Post/Banda Aceh
A romantic picture in a recent edition of the Serambi daily here is of a young couple. A beautiful lady, her hair done up in a bun and wearing a pretty, sleeveless dress is embracing a man in a dapper suit, who poses confidently for the camera. But the photograph is not for a wedding announcement. Above the picture of the couple is one of a little girl, her name is Vei Ren.
Someone must have placed an ad for her in the missing persons pages; the ad says she is looking for her mother, Suicen, and father, Hendra -- the couple in the picture.
Like the other ads, one sentence indicates where the couple were on the morning of Dec. 26, plus a contact number. They were in Keudah, one of the areas devastated by the tidal waves.
Ads like this are regularly found, more than three months after tsunamis engulfed this town, leaving over 230,000 dead or missing across Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatra.
Thousands have stopped searching for their loved ones, finding some solace through the several mass prayer gatherings held since the 100-day commemoration of the tragedy, on April 4, the most recent held in a number of areas here, as well as the Baiturrahman Mosque on Sunday.
There are also survivors who are reunited with their family members after months of separation. In the weeks following the disaster, the Jakarta-based Metro TV invited people to view footage of tsunami survivors on the off-chance that one of their family members or friends was captured on camera alive.
On Sunday and Monday thousands of names were published under the "I'm alive!" project run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), in cooperation with the Jakarta-based Kompas daily and Banda Aceh- based Serambi Indonesia. The ICRC plans to distribute copies of the supplement in strategic spots, such as markets, transportation terminals and displaced persons camps across town and in other areas; though the head of the ICRC's Aceh office Amelia Husagic, thinks that to achieve the best results the copies would need to be posted absolutely everywhere, although this is, of course, an impossibility.
The directory, the latest form of the "I'm alive!" project that began in January, lists the names of missing persons in alphabetical order, old and new addresses and year of birth, aside from the names of their father and mother, based on data gathered by or reported to Red Cross staff across the province.
The list can also be accessed at the ICRC and PMI offices and in the website www.familylinks.icrc.org., as well as through hotlines such as, 08001403040.
The ICRC here is credited with having managed to reunite 3,044 families since the tsunami through its provision of free satellite phone services or assisting survivors to call relatives, among other means. The reunions of a few thousand others were facilitated by other organizations. For the Red Cross, restoring severed family links is part of its work in other countries, mainly those torn by conflict.
Husagic recalls her involvement in such work in countries like Myanmar, Ethiopia and Kosovo apart from Bosnia, her home country.
"If people have to leave their homes, regardless of whether it's because of a natural disaster or other reasons, the needs are quite similar," she said.
Among other issues, the ICRC is particularly concerned about the welfare of unaccompanied minors. This refers to children under 18 who were separated from their families in the disaster, where the ICRC and the PMI work with government bodies and other international organizations like Save the Children and World Vision, apart from local organizations like Muhammadiyah.
So far, from 39 unaccompanied minors, "28 have been reunited with their families," says Husagic.
With thousands missing, success stories are minuscule in number. But each and every name recorded, matched and finally linked up with their families is a source of joy for Husagic and her staff in Aceh.
It's just "very emotional," Husagic says.