Indonesia has advised foreign aid workers in the war-stricken Indonesian province of Aceh to leave because of security concerns.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said local government and the Indonesian Red Cross would be responsible for distributing all humanitarian aid in Indonesia's westernmost province, where the military launched an offensive against separatist rebels eight days ago.
Thousands of people have fled their homes and food distribution has been disrupted in Aceh.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the five international non-governmental organisations and four UN agencies operating in Aceh had not been banned from the province but were given little choice but to leave.
Indonesia, which has security forces more than 40,000-strong facing 5,000 guerrilla-style fighters of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), said yesterday it plans to step up its latest offensive against the rebels.
The two sides have been fighting for 27 years in a simmering conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people, most of them civilians.
The latest fighting, triggered by the start of Indonesia's new offensive on May 19th, has forced as many as 23,000 people from their homes and disrupted transportation.