Immediate help urged for Buton refugees, orphans

Immediate help urged for Buton refugees, orphans

JAKARTA (JP): Medical doctors, students and witnesses of
religious unrest in the Maluku towns of Ambon and Tual, which
have up to 100,000 people displaced, are appealing for immediate
assistance for refugees now living in so squalid a condition many
could die of disease.

A team of medical students from the University of Indonesia
and doctors from Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital interviewed
on the sidelines of a fund-raiser on Sunday, spoke of recent
visits to the riot-torn areas and refugee centers in Buton,
Southeast Sulawesi, which are in dire need of medical service,
food and clean water.

The students and doctors spent nearly two weeks in early April
in Tual, and a week in Buton, whose original population of
500,000 now has to accommodate up to 80,000 refugees including
"thousands of orphans".

Student Bona Akhad described how in Tual, some 500 kilometers
southeast of Ambon, thousands of refugees are crammed into the
unfinished building of Tual market. Three to four families were
put into each kiosk of the market.

"They need food badly, but it can never reach them fast
enough," he said.

Bona added the food supplies being shipped by his university
in cooperation with state-owned shipping company Pelni would
never reach on time the areas which needed immediate help.

"The most recent shipment arrived at its destination on May
10, despite the ship actually departing from Jakarta on April
20," he said. "Children there have not had milk for months. They
need nutrition badly."

Another student, Dani, described how thousands of people who
fled Maluku to Buton's capital of Bau-Bau were immediately asked
by local officials whether they still remembered certain places
in the province. Most of the refugees were actually from
Southeast Sulawesi and who migrated to Maluku.

"Some refugees remembered their ancestors lived in the
Lasalimu district... some remembered their mother was born in a
village in Buton, and according to what they remembered, they
were placed there," Dani said.

"In actuality, none of them had living relatives in those
villages," he said.

Dani explained how a number of Buton locals took pity on the
refugees and took them in. The largest traditional rumah panggung
(elevated houses on stilts or pillars) in Lasalimu district, for
instance, was an 8-meter by 6-meter shack which now had to
accommodate up to five families of refugees.

The villagers there made it a practice of collecting a monthly
fee of Rp 5,000 (US 12 cents) from the refugees for food
supplies.

"Tell me, how much can that help?" Dani said.

He also said the refugees faced three kinds of water problems.
The first concerned those who were located in villages over a
kilometer away from puddles of water; they had to walk that
distance to scoop water with cans.

"Secondly, there are those who live close by to ponds with
very green, filthy water. They bath, wash and drink from there.
Third, there are those who live by the beach. You can imagine the
water situation there," he said.

Basuki Supartono, a member of the team of doctors sent to
Tual, recounted how they had to face a closed-down hospital upon
arriving at the city by a Navy plane from Ambon.

"All of the doctors in that hospital had left it and Tual. My
team were so shocked we could just stand there," said Basuki, an
orthopedic surgeon who together with his team and the students
performed 29 operations in their 12-day visit in Tual.

"We were informed that Tual hospital was closed because of
security reasons. Doctors are supposed to be given a guarantee of
safety from the state if they serve during the war... and we
faced that situation," he said.

Basuki explained the priority was to operate on patients with
blast wounds, gunshot wounds and wounds from sharp weapons
resulting from the war between Muslims and Christians that had so
far killed more than 300 people in the province.

With the help of doctors from the Indonesian Military (TNI),
the hospital was reopened.

"While the hospital was being guarded by one-tenth of the Army
battalion, we doctors mopped the floors and got its operating
rooms ready," Basuki said.

Among injuries they operated on were wounds caused by the
accidental blasting of hand-made "bazookas", a perforated colon
from an arrow and the rupturing of a major blood artery near the
chest by arrows and gun-shot wounds.

When asked whether it would be possible for the elections to
be held in the refugee zones in Maluku, Dani said the situations
in Tual and Ambon were still prone to rioting.

"Christians there are pro-Christian political parties and
Muslims, pro-Muslim parties. If a Muslim party wins, riots could
break out again," Dani said.

"Problems will mainly arise, I think, during the campaigning
activities and ballot counting."

Eri Sudewo, head of the Dompet Dhuafa relief non-governmental
organization, described how once a Muslim political party held a
campaigning rally near refugee centers in Buton totally ignored
them.

"The campaigners were as far as 600 meters from those
refugees. They didn't bother to come and do anything for the
refugees," Eri said. (ylt)