| Subject: UN Says 400,000
Missing Timorese In Mountains Reuters
October 13, 1999
UN Says 400,000 Missing Timorese In Mountains
DILI, East Timor -- Hundreds of thousands of East Timorese
are hiding in the mountains across the rugged territory, hampering relief efforts, U.N.
officials and aid workers said Wednesday.
"The arithmetic is very difficult to understand... but
any way you cut it we're missing about 400,000 people who we believe are in the hills,''
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance spokesman Michel Barton told
Reuters.
That means about half the bloodied territory's people are
hiding in jungles and bushland where food and water are scarce.
Another 260,000 fled the eastern half of Timor island
altogether and are sheltering in neighboring areas of Indonesia, mainly West Timor.
"We're perplexed... we're very concerned,'' Barton
said.
"If these people stay up in the mountains as the rainy
season approaches we're going to be facing a time when it's going to be extremely
difficult for us to supply them at all.''
About 890,000 people lived in East Timor before a
U.N.-supervised ballot on August 30 in which the territory overwhelmingly voted to split
from Indonesia, whose brutal army-imposed rule is not internationally recognized.
The vote triggered massive violence as pro-Jakarta militia
groups ransacked virtually every settlement in East Timor, systematically killing, burning
and looting as they went.
Three weeks into its mission, the U.N.-mandated
multinational force known as INTERFET has established a security presence in most parts of
East Timor.
Most Indonesian army and police forces have departed East
Timor and militia activity now seems confined to an area along the border with West Timor.
So far, only about 150,000 East Timorese have returned to
their towns and villages, leaving about 400,000 unaccounted for.
"I don't think the killings can explain this huge
discrepancy of missing people. The majority of those missing are surviving or trying to
survive in the hills and mountains,'' said Andrew McNaughtan, a Timor activist and a
doctor with the relief group Timor Aid.
"They've got a better chance or surviving in the
mountains. At the moment there's nothing to go back to. In a large proportion of places
these towns are burned to the ground and there's no food.''
With heavy seasonal rains imminent, getting refugees down
from the hills and back to towns and villages along main roads where they can be reached
is a matter of urgency.
Aid workers say reaching hundreds of thousands of widely
scattered people by helicopter would not be practical during what is known here as the
"Wet.''
"We think the rains will start in two or three weeks.
At that time it will be almost impossible to reach the people in the mountains and then
we'll be facing some very dire circumstances,'' said the U.N.'s Barton.
"The children in particular we have every reason to
fear will be suffering from respiratory diseases, from malaria which is an endemic problem
in this region.
"We are looking forward with anxiety to the return of
these people soon.''
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