Message from Action By Churches Together
By Orla Clinton, Church of Sweden/ACT International
Aceh, Indonesia, January 21, 2005—Over the past few weeks, it has become almost a regular occurrence – the count of the number of people who are dead in Indonesia being raised again to tragically higher and higher levels. The death toll for the country’s hard-hit Aceh province climbed to 115,000 after 5,000 more bodies were found along the west coast on Sunday, and this week the Indonesian government changed the status of tens of thousands of missing people to dead. And still, thousands of bodies have yet to be retrieved from under rubble and in remote and inaccessible areas. More than 28,000 of Meulaboh’s 97,000 residents are believed to have died when the floods decimated the city.
The scale of the disaster on all sectors is just beginning to hit home, with whole communities physically and psychologically damaged, livelihoods lost and local capacity diminished through death. Thousands of doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers were lost in the disaster, which wiped out entire areas.
The unimaginable damage, particularly in the areas of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, two large coastal cities, has created enormous needs. Currently the relief effort is focusing on all basic services and life-saving interventions such as food, water and sanitation, health care and emergency-relief supplies. Yet, three weeks on, some communities on the west coast have still not been reached. The fate of thousands more is still unknown, and survivors in remote areas still face the potential risk of hunger and disease. The government is planning to relocate the displaced to alternative sites over the coming weeks.
With two coordinators in place in Jakarta and Medan, the work of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International is gathering pace to respond more effectively and coherently to the disaster in Aceh.
The response of ACT, a global alliance of churches and related agencies, is carried out by its members in Indonesia - Church World Service (CWS), YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) and Yayasan Tanggul Bancana (YTB). Each in turn cooperates with well-established local church and secular organizations in Banda Aceh, on the west coast including the island of Nias, and on the east coast in Lhokseumawe, North Aceh.
“We have been assessing the scale of the problems and the capacity of our local partners to carry out the work,” says Jakarta-based ACT coordinator Sjoerd van Schooneveld. He says task forces on information have been established which should streamline the work of all partners. On top of this, ACT is reinforcing its quality control to strengthen its appeal with more updated assessments of the situation on the ground.
On January 7, the Geneva-based ACT Coordinating Office issued a US$41.8 million appeal for tsunami relief and rehabilitation activities in the Indian Ocean region. One of the largest appeals in its 10-year history, it includes $11.7 million worth of activities in Indonesia alone.
van Schooneveld says it is vital that partners on the ground have a high level of collaboration. Each partner’s plans are currently being revised as the long-term needs become clearer. At the end of the month, all partners will meet to finalize the revision of the Indonesia appeal and the role of partners.
“But a lot more work needs to be done on coordination, quality control, finances and accountability. We want to set the same standards for all in the field,” says Van Schooneveld, who admits the work ahead is quite challenging.
One challenge is incorporating the additional activities of other ACT members on the ground. They will be encouraged to work with the local ACT implementing members and help strengthen their capacity.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has begun rapid health assessments along the west coast in conjunction with the Indonesian government, other U.N. agencies and the U.S. military. WHO says it is vital and urgent to obtain and confirm information on the health status of people affected by the tsunami. There is good information from Banda Aceh and the surrounding area, but elsewhere information is limited or unavailable. A major constraint is a combination of access and security. “Roads are impassable, bridges are broken, and reaching the affected people is extremely difficult,” reports WHO, which says access by air travel is the most effective solution.
Meanwhile, UNICEF continues to vaccinate against measles in all affected areas, but the campaign is not happening as quickly as expected because the local infrastructure has collapsed. More than 50 health centers were damaged, and from the provincial health services only 118 staff out of a total of 418 have reported for work. It is estimated that 40 percent of provincial health staff were lost.
As of January 15, seven cases of measles were reported as well as some cases of dysentery. Dr. Budi Subianto of UNICEF says that what they are noticing is a lower percentage of children under the age of five with these illnesses. The normal level for this group is between 12 and 14 percent but is now around 3 percent among the displaced. This indicates the loss of life in the under-five population is great.
Tetanus is also posing a risk, with almost 70 cases reported by Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF). Many people are exposing themselves through collecting and handling corpses without any gloves or boots on. MSF has started warning communities about the risks they face and are also distributing boots and gloves.
With roads, bridges and ports destroyed, Aceh will require a long-term commitment to rehabilitation and reconstruction that is now estimated will cost US$4 billion.
