Dateline ACT

South & south east Asia/Indonesia 02/05

Forgotten by God and the world

By Orla Clinton, Church of Sweden/ACT International

Nias, Indonesia, January 19, 2005--With the glare of international media attention on the flattened cities of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, combined with an overwhelming outpouring of global compassion, it is easy to think that relief is getting through.

Yet three weeks after the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean region, there are still people stranded in areas of Indonesia, particularly on the west coast, where roads and bridges are out and where helicopters cannot land. Efforts are being made to reach these places. But there are also other areas where the tsunami ravished communities -perhaps forever. These pockets of tragedy seem to be forgotten in the gaping holes of destruction of Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.

The effect on communities in remote areas like Sirombu on Nias island in north Sumatra is equally as catastrophic. Here the wave killed 119 people and displaced more than 4,000. Five schools, five churches, two mosques, two health centers, 111 bridges and more than 400 homes were destroyed. For hundreds of thousands of people, there has been an impact on every aspect of life. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimated that 800 fishing canoes were destroyed on Nias. For the mostly poor fishermen and farming communities, their lives might as well have ended, they say, as they have lost everything.

Nias is predominantly Christian, and like most of the islands including the Mentawai group, it is isolated from Indonesia. Sirombu and Mandrehe are the kind of areas no one ever hears about and few outsiders visit. Lives are lived in a continuing cycle of poverty and neglect where women die in childbirth, the majority of people are illiterate, and where malaria and other diseases kill.

According to Surf Aid International, a medical organization and the only international one operating on Nias and the Mentawai islands, these areas face a serious risk of epidemics with malaria already high at 25 to 30 percent. “We need to get these whole communities under nets,” says Dave Jenkins, Surf Aid’s medical director. He explains how malaria weakens the population through chest infections and malnutrition as well as directly killing people here. His organization is distributing nets, vaccinating against measles and supplying micronutrients and vitamin A.

Along with Surf Aid, the very few humanitarian aid agencies or organizations working here include Yayasan Tanggul Benkana (YTB) and YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU). Besides working with each other, YTB and YEU, both ACT members in Indonesia, are working through the local Disaster Response Unit (BPB), a church-based organization founded in February 2004 to better respond to floods and landslides, which the island often experiences.

When the tsunami hit, BPB did a rapid assessment and coordinated with all the churches to rapidly respond to the needs of the displaced and affected people. Saro Gea, coordinator of the BPB, says it is helping the displaced by supplying food, clothes, mattresses, medicines and kitchen goods donated through partners like YTB and other churches and organizations. But he says they are limited in what they can achieve because of limited resources. Nevertheless, ACT members are doing what they can. Norwegian Church Aid, another ACT member, sent a water engineer to Sirombu to do an assessment on the water and sanitation situation, and YEU is operating a mobile clinic, is constructing latrines, and plans to recruit and train more local health workers to strengthen services for affected communities.

The main question now is how to help displaced people return to normal lives. The tsunami stole what little these communities had, pushing them further down the poverty line. Life is simple here, and people earn barely enough to sustain their families. Whole fishing and farming villages in Sirombu and Mandrehe have been wiped out for good. The market, which so many livelihoods depended upon, was also destroyed. Supply lines are interrupted, and people throughout these islands are facing critical food shortages, as they cannot sell or buy their goods. Prices have risen 32 percent, with sugar having almost doubled in the space of three weeks. Children’s education will be interrupted as parents can no longer afford to send their children to school. No one is fishing as their boats were destroyed, and all are too afraid and stunned to return to the sea.

Ama Aspirasi Gulo sits alone amid the ruins of what was once his home in Sisarahili, an area accessible only by foot or motorbike three km from Sirombu. Like Ama, families had lived here for generations. “It was a peaceful life. All the families had their own economic resources through coconut farming and selling. We enjoyed life, even if we were far away from the city,” says the 40-year-old father of four, showing the flattened homes of his neighbors and where they died.

He recounts how the earthquake shook their homes but no one fled as they did not anticipate any flooding. But then the waves rose and enveloped the whole village. “People were crying and shouting to God to come and help them. But God didn’t come - only more water,” Ama explains, saying he knows 68 people who died. Luckily his family escaped by climbing coconut trees.

Now he has returned to his house, which is nothing but scraps of grass and wood, to try to salvage what can be useful. But there is nothing but damp wood and a red plastic chair. His dead neighbors’ houses are strewn with bits of lives once lived here - clothing, a plastic clock, a baby’s bottle, a wet Bible and some photos.

Ama will never live here again. He plans to rebuild his life somewhere else away from the sea, away from where his forefathers had lived for generations. A whole way of life and culture is washed away and gone forever. “I have finished with this place,” he says, motioning to the ghost village where he watched helplessly as his friends and neighbors drowned and where God and no one else seemed to hear.

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