East Timorese are dying in refugees camps in Indonesian West Timor because pro-Jakarta militia are denying aid groups full access to the camps, the United Nations said yesterday.
Nearly 160 refugees have died of malaria and diarrhoea in the past two months in Tuapukan, near the West Timor capital of Kupang. The toll is expected to rise as the rainy season sets in.
Ms Ariane Quentier of the UN refugee agency UNHCR told reporters they had been able to pay lightning visits to extract people who wanted to return east, but had had problems with longer assessment visits.
Ms Quentier said the 4,000 refugees at Tuapukan were also told by militiamen they had to pay for medical assistance.
Militia have also been blamed for the substantial reduction in refugee border crossings in the past month.
Ms Quentier said the number of returnees had fallen 75 per cent in the past month since an incident at Atambua - 38 km into West Timor - where proJakarta gangs attacked a convoy of 200 refugees assembled outside the town's police station.
An estimated 250,000 East Timorese fled their homes amid the violence from pro-Jakarta militias which followed the vote for independence on August 30th.
The UN estimates more than 113,000 have so far returned to the territory and have prepared for a further 130,000 to cross the border in the near term.
Ms Quentier said taped messages from key East Timorese figures, such as the independence leaders Mr Xanana Gusmao and Mr Jose Ramos-Horta and the Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo, would be played in the camps this week to encourage refugees to return and to dispel many of the myths spread by the militia. AFP adds: Today is the 24th anniversary of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. The bodies began to wash ashore about a week after Indonesia invaded on December 7th, 1975.
"I buried one man over there on the beach," said Mr Joao Pereira (56), who was a waiter at the seafront hotel Turismo when Indonesian troops landed on December 7th, 1975.
Mr Pereira, who still works at the hotel, said the legs of the East Timorese victim had been bound. The waiter turned and motioned further along the water's edge. "I buried one old man who died over there, and I buried one little boy."
They were among the first of what Amnesty International has estimated were up to 200,000 East Timorese who died from armed conflict, bombardment, execution, famine and disease after the invasion. The dead accounted for about one third of East Timor's pre-invasion population, Amnesty said.
Year after year of brutality followed until the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly on August 30th this year to move towards independence, a move that produced a final Indonesian spasm of murder, rape, arson, forced relocation and looting.
David Shanks adds: Two East Timorese who have been studying in Ireland for the past three years are returning to their independent homeland on Thursday after a seven-year absence. "We have dreamed of this day and to return to our homeland this Christmas time is a gift we never thought we would have," said Mr Jose Lopes (25), who is studying media production at Pearse College, Crumlin.
In 1994 Mr Lopes and Mr Dino Gandara Rai (24), who is studying science at Trinity College, Dublin, joined other Timorese students who occupied western embassies in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, during a visit by President Clinton. A third occupier, Mr Luciano da Conceicao (26), who also came to Ireland in 1994, is now studying in London.
They were given political asylum in Portugal and later the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign facilitated their stay in Ireland to help provide a skills base for the new country. A party was given for them last Sunday night, which was attended by the Portuguese ambassador to Ireland, Mr Joao da Vallera.