West Timor: UN evacuates staff, mourns slain relief workers
7 September -- Following yesterday's murder of three United Nations staff members in West Timor, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) said today that it had evacuated some 140 relief workers from two West Timorese towns.
The UN mission said that 69 humanitarian personnel had been taken to East Timor's capital, Dili, from Atambua, where the killings had taken place, while another 70 had been flown to Indonesia from Kupang, the capital of West Timor.
A UN helicopter brought the bodies of the three murdered staff of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to Dili airport, where a ceremony was held in their honour.
"This is not the first time I have put flowers on coffins or body bags of UN staff, but it is particularly difficult when the murder is so brutally senseless," said UNTAET chief Sergio Vieira de Mello, who attended the ceremony with UNHCR's Head of Operations, Bernard Kerblat, and the commander of the UN peacekeeping forces in East Timor, Lieutenant General Boonsrang Niumpradit.
"We are talking about sheer murder of humanitarian staff who were there to help and protect the victims of similarly senseless violence carried out by the same people in East Timor last year," Mr. Vieira de Mello said. "My hope is that [what has happened] will lead to decisive action against this cancer called militia."
The three coffins, draped in UN flags, were driven in a procession to the morgue at the UN Mission's Human Rights centre.
One Brazilian national, severely injured in yesterday's attack, is currently receiving treatment at Dili Military Hospital and her condition is stable, UNTAET said.
According to the Mission, yesterday's violence in Atambua was triggered by a funeral procession originating in a nearby town, Betun, for slain militia leader Olivio Mendonça. The three aid workers were killed when a group of militia stormed the UNHCR compound.
