JP/5/RELAWAN

JP/5/RELAWAN

Foreign volunteers free to stay as long as they wish on Nias

Apriadi Gunawan
The Jakarta Post/Medan

The North Sumatra provincial administration, which is in charge
of disaster mitigation on Nias island, on Thursday announced that
it would give ample time for the foreign relief workers involved
in humanitarian relief efforts to stay in the area, and gave
assurances as regards their safety.

A spokesman for the North Sumatra Natural Disaster
Coordinating Unit (Satkorlak), R.E. Nainggolan, said that the
foreign volunteers in Nias had helped considerably to ease the
burden on Satkorlak in conducting relief efforts and their
presence was still greatly needed.

Nainggolan said that based on these considerations, the
provincial administration had decided not to set any time limit
for the foreign volunteers until the situation in Nias had
improved.

According to Nainggolan, the decision had been taken due to
the fact that Nias, unlike Aceh, was not a conflict area and that
the foreign volunteers would be in no danger.

"It's up to them how long they want to stay in Nias. We will
not limit their stay. Their presence is still needed, as they
have proven themselves to be totally dependable in helping
victims over the past two weeks. The disaster mitigation efforts
would definitely be slow without their help," Nainggolan told The
Jakarta Post.

Nainggolan added that the number of foreigners who had arrived
in Nias since the disaster stood at 446, and that they were drawn
from eight United Nations organizations and 71 non-governmental
organizations. There were also 36 foreign journalists in the
area.

Most of them came from Singapore, the United States of
America, the Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, France, Malaysia,
Russia, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Hungary, Norway, New Zealand
and China. There were also 520 local volunteers from 41
organizations doing relief work in Nias, which was recently
rocked by an 8.7-magnitude earthquake that killed hundreds of
people on Nias and on surrounding islands.

Nainggolan said that while the number of foreign volunteers
kept increasing, some had also returned home. Those who had left
were from Hungary, Singapore and Australia.

According to Nainggolan, all of the foreign relief workers on
Nias are being coordinated by the United Nations Organization
Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), assisted by three
liaison officers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He added that every foreign volunteer doing humanitarian work
in Nias would be treated well.

"We will treat them like members of our own family and their
safety will be the full responsibility of our security personnel,"
said Nainggolan, who is also the head of the North Sumatra
Information and Communications Agency.

Polonia Airport Immigration Unit director Sigit Roesdianto
said that most of the foreign volunteers had been issued visas on
arrival or short-stay entry permits. About 190 of them had
already returned home.

Nainggolan said that Satkorlak was grateful for the large
amount of foreign aid donated to the quake victims in Nias. To
date, hundreds of tons of foreign aid from a number of donor
countries had arrived on Nias.

The aid was being distributed to quake victims in Nias and
South Nias regencies. Nearly everywhere on Nias had received
sufficient aid three weeks after the disaster.

However, he added that there was still a shortage of tents for
those who had been displaced.

"We still require about 3,000 tents because many of the
displaced are still afraid to return home. They are still
sleeping in the open air without tents," said Nainggolan, adding
that the UNHCR had recently delivered about 752 tents.