Taufiq Alimi, fellow do LEAD Indonésia, relata os esforços de voluntários e organizações humanitárias na província de Aceh, na Indonésia, um dos locais mais atingidos pelo Tsunami. Leia abaixo seus depoimentos na íntegra (em inglês).

10/jan/2005

Dear Julia and other colleagues,

Again many thanks. I am doing this as an individual, but I am part of the newly formed Coalition of Civil Society for Aceh. The coalition comprises of civil society organizations, one of them Walhi (part of the global Friends of the Earth network) is the center for recruitment of volunteers (including medics), Abdi's organization (Yappika) is for information center, and many others working on logistics, transportation, etc. The secretariat of this is hosted by the Indonesian chapter of Transparency International.

A few days ago I developed the operation design and is being finalized now. Based on the design the team is working on fund raising, and has good support from TDH and HIVOS, I myself is trying to connect this with the fund raised by our Fellow of cohort 8 (Ronny Mustamu) through his daily.

This afternoon I also had meeting with Semen Cibinong (a cement company) to raise fund for the recovery program. In addition to that, I will also try to cooperate with other Fellows like Prasetyoadi and his architecture network (on safe, inexpensive and suitable design of houses), some Fellows have helped us organizing some tools and equipment and also personnel (Catharina Harining of C-8 helped to send doctor through her Churches, Suryaningsih of C-9 and her company sent some water purification system, and Didi Sjadzali is also working on designing skid mounted water treatment plant).

The last report I got from teh field is saying that our medical team has adequate medicine and medical equipment. the medicine is enough in number/amount but is lacking in their kinds, such as anti depressant, oxygen, mobile thorax X-ray, etc. Adding to water problem we also foresee problems in sanitation as well as distribution of water in the west coast, where the refugees scattered in some hilly areas. Difficulties in transportation to the west coast worsened the problems. We just learned that the road from Medan (the nearest big city to the Aceh Province) to Meulaboh (a town with 80% devastation in the west coast) is just restored and we ferry our supplies to the victims through road (previously was using chopper and was very troubling).

Having such situation, I believe any help would be welcome, medical supplies (related to pneumonia and malnutrition), drinkable water will be the most needed, as there have been many food aids. As we are going to introduce labor-intensive reconstruction of infrastructure cash to pay the workers is also much needed.

Best personal regards,
taufiq

06/jan/2005

Dear Julia and other colleagues,

Thanks for your concern on the issues on the tsunami in Aceh. I just got back from there working on assessing and providing assistance to the victims. I was there with the Coalition of Civil society for Aceh. Once I arrived in Aceh the feeling was mixed: terrified, scared and mostly sad.

It was soo saddening just to see people with the sad faces, they were quiet. The very crowded airport sounded very quiet everyone looked so shocked, with deep sadness in their eyes. Some frustration also apparent from their eyes. I also went to Aceh with very limited information on the number of victims, the area to work, and the contact. But all volunteers who arrived with their big back pack shared the same objectives, to help the victims!

We met our contact and established a base for our relief operation. After assessing the damages, the amount of works we faced the resources we had, we set up assessment teams, medical teams, relief and logistics teams, later on we also established advance team for opening new sites and also team for corpses evacuation. We started with 22 people from Jakarta, and 10 people from Aceh. After few days our resources expanded around 250 people (comprising of 50 corpses evacuators, 20 medical team, advance team, and logistic distribition team). We got our supplies from various organizations including government offices, state owned companies, international NGOs (TDH, CWS, etc).

Having such resources we assessed up to 40 refuge camps (the population varied from 100 - 4000 per site, with average 1000-2000 people). The age distribution is at normal distribution (30% under 15, 50% 15-55 years old, and 20% above 55). The refugees suffer respiratory infection diseases, digestive problems, skin diseases, injuries (which has been soo badly and becoming gangrene). There is also danger of cholera and malaria plague. The latter has been closely observed and seem to be overcome. while the first seem still to be dangerous. Another serious problem was pneumonia of babies due to the inhalation of water when they were drowned, and fracture (one suffered seriously cranium impressive fracture and been able to be evacuated to Jakarta together with other babies with pneumonia).

In addition most refugees are lacking in food (we found that they only have food for one day), water is also a serious problems but other organizations are working on providing the water treatment facilities CARE International providing pills and liquid for detoxification, CWS is working with us in setting up water treatment plant, and there are many others. In addition, there is still a water spring that provides water for some camps (near refugee camp at mata ie). In some other areas the water quality is much worse with high salinity and contamination. Shelter and clothing are also other problems.

In some areas of Banda Aceh, electricity is available, and so is telephone line. The cellular phone are also available from comercial phone providers (that kindly freed up the phone bill from Aceh Area). But the trucks and fuel are very limited and it hindered the ability of the volunteers to distribute the aids. It also limits the ability of the volunteers and evacuators to remove the corpses. The removal capacity of corpses from the city is 6000 per day (coordinated and done mostly by the army), while the remaining corpses in Banda Aceh are more than 40,000. Under such capacity, it will take more than 6 days to remove the entire bodies, it will be already more than two weeks after the death. Such situation will lead to other dangers as the corpses will be decomposing and spread dangerous bacteria and viruses. Another problem is the liited number of body bags, shovels, and tools to remove the bodies (gloves, boot shoes, etc).

The Coalition (in which there is Abdi Suryaningati of cohort 7 and myself) is working on the post relief operation. Some recovery plan is now being finalized and staffs are being recruited for it. Once things are rather settled, I will be informing the needs of ours. We are also trying to sort out the resources and coordinate the organizations involved, once things are clearer, I will keep you all posted.

best personal regards,

Taufiq