Also: Indonesian troops, medical team deployed to town in West Timor

Refugees running low on food after UN flight from West Timor

JAKARTA, Sept 9 (AFP) - Thousands of East Timorese refugees in West Timor have begun to run out of food after their supplies were halted by the exodus of humanitarian workers triggered by the murders of three UN staff, UN and refugee camp officials said Saturday.

In the town of Sulamu, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Kupang, 1,508 refugees in the camp were facing starvation, Rosario Soares, a camp coordinator was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

Soares said that the last food drop the camp had received -- 12 kilograms (26 pounds) -- was done by Care International on July 28.

"We ... have not received aid (since then) and have been eating sago and cassava. But now, even those two food groups no longer exist, so we can only submit to our fate," Soares said.

The government in Jakarta, he said, must take action, and warned of outbreaks of violence if the refugees became desperate.

Care was among the agencies which joined the exodus after the grisly murders on Wednesday of three aid workers from the UN High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) in the refugee-swollen border town of Atambua.

In all more than 400 aid workers, local and foreign, have evacuated West Timor since the killings, leaving the food distribution network at a standstill.

UNHCR spokesman Jake Morland, who was among those evacuated from the West Timor capital of Kupang to Bali, said the government had to act fast to prevent a disaster.

"Absolutely!" Morland told AFP when asked if starvation was a real threat. "We've evacuated West Timor and that means our food assistance will not be getting to the refugees there.

"A long list of international aid agencies in West Timor, including the World Food Program (WFP) have been evacuated. There are no aid agencies to provide food.

"Any resumption of activities in West Timor is not on the cards at the moment ... we cannot distribute food from where we are now," he added.

"We would like the government to assume full responsibility for the food distribution for the refugees," Morland said.

Soares called the situation in the camps precarious.

"I think anyone who is forced to wait while starving, must become impatient, and they are definitely impatient," he said.

"Under the situation, sooner or later we are going to be driven to resort to brutal acts to maintain our survival. All we think of is how to get something to eat," he said.

Antara quoted West Timor governor Piet Tallo as saying Indonesian Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri had promised to dispatch 100 tons of rice in to the camps, which hold some 100,000 to 120,000 people.

"Hunger would bring a negative impact on the refugees. So, there is a need to take preventive measures. I have reported on such a possibility, and the vice president has responded promptly, sending 100 tons of rice," Tallo said.

But there was no word on who would carry out the distribution of the food.

The UNHCR headquarters in Geneva has said verbal assurances from the government that their workers will be protected from pro-Indonesian miltia was not enough for the aid workers to return.

Hundreds of militiamen armed with machetes attacked UN offices and other buildings in Atambua on Wednesday, following the murder of one of their leaders by unknown assassins.

Three UNHCR staff members were killed and their bodies burned by the militia -- paramilitary troops who were raised and trained by the Indonesian armed forces in East Timor prior to its independence last year.

The militia have been in Indonesian West Timor, near the refugee camps holding thousands of East Timorese refugees, since the arrival of UN-sanctioned troops in East Timor one year ago.

On Friday residents of Atambua said by phone on condition of anonymity that the miltia were roaming the town at will, despite the dispatch of a battalion of troops from Jakarta.

--- Indonesian troops, medical team deployed to town in West Timor

JAKARTA, Sept 9 (AFP) - Three separate teams of Indonesian military, police and doctors were dispatched Saturday to an isolated town in West Timor to help wounded residents, officials there said.

But hospital, police and military officials refused to say why they had been ordered to send teams to the town of Besikama in Malaka Barat sub-district, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of the border town of Atambua.

"We've just dispatched a crew of six men, but with only one doctor, to Besikama because we've heard that there were several wounded people who required medical attention," the director of Atambua state hospital, Johnny Laoh, told AFP by telephone.

"But as to when or what has happened in Besikama today, I don't have the information because I was only ordered by the city officials to provide a medical team for the military and police teams," Laoh added.

A duty police officer in Atambua, Second Adjuntant Inspector Martinus Benyamin, told AFP that his police chief Superintendent Simatupang "had just left to Besikama by helicopter" around 11 a.m. (0400 GMT).

Asked about the purpose of the sudden visit to the isolated town, Benyamin said: "We were instructed not to provide information ..."

Atambua is the border town where three foreign UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staffers were killed Wednesday.

Atambua's sub-district military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Yosef Pareira, declined to say why a military team was sent to Besikama, adding that "perhaps they were sent just to inspect the situation there."

A staff member with Indonesia's security border military team in Atambua, told AFP on condition of anonymity that his commander, Lieutenant Colonel Indra Hidayat, had "also left early this morning" to Besikama.

Meanwhile, a UN official in the East Timorese capital of Dili said a total of 39 East Timorese aid workers from Atambua and Betun had safely crossed into East Timor on Friday.

UNHCR spokeswoman Ellen Hanson confirmed the crossings, which she said brought the number of UN and other aid workers who had left West Timor following the murders to around 400.

Colonel Brynjar Nymo, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping forces in East Timor, told AFP by phone from Dili on Saturday that the border area with West Timor had been quiet for the past few days.

Hundreds of militiamen armed with machetes attacked UN offices and other buildings in Atambua on Wednesday, following the murder the day before of one of their leaders by unknown assassins.

Three UNHCR staff members were killed and their bodies burned by the militia -- paramilitary troops who were raised and trained by the Indonesian armed forces in East Timor prior to its independence last year.

The militia have been in Indonesian West Timor, staying near the refugee camps holding thousands of East Timorese refugees, since the arrival of UN-sanctioned troops in East Timor one year ago.

On Friday residents of Atambua said by phone on condition of anonymity that the miltia were roaming the town at will, despite the dispatch of a battalion of troops from Jakarta after Wednesday's killings.

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