27 October -- The United Nations and humanitarian agencies today launched a worldwide appeal for more than $199 million to finance emergency assistance programmes in East and West Timor until the end of June 2000.
The money will provide East Timorese with a safety-net of essential services, including shelter, food, health care and education over the next nine months, while laying the groundwork for full-scale reconstruction and development, a UN spokesman said in New York. Humanitarian agencies are already working closely together to develop an integrated programme to cover the emergency and initial reconstruction needs of more than 650,000 people.
According to the appeal, prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 75 per cent of East Timor's population was displaced and 70 per cent of all housing, public buildings and essential services were destroyed during the two-week's of violence that erupted after the territory voted overwhelmingly on 30 August for independence. The crisis deepened when public services and law and order collapsed with the rapid and unexpected departure of Indonesian authorities.
The appeal will also meet emergency humanitarian relief needs in West Timor where as many as 400,000 displaced persons face deteriorating health conditions due to early monsoon rains, according to UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, the lead agency for several sectors of the consolidated appeal. Almost 40 per cent of refugees in West Timor are estimated to be under15 years of age. Respiratory infections in the camps are on the rise and the threat of malaria is also growing.
Meanwhile, Ian Martin, the Acting Special Representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is in Darwin, Australia, today and tomorrow to chair meetings of an inter-agency mission which will assess immediate rehabilitation needs in East Timor and outline reconstruction and development programmes. The mission is led by the World Bank and includes representatives from several UN agencies, the International Monetary Fund, donor countries and some 25 East Timorese. The mission will be in East Timor for two weeks starting on Friday.
In other developments, more than 4,000 people in the last two days have come down from the mountains to Oecusse city, the East Timorese enclave in West Timor, said the UN spokesman. The enclave with an original population of around 7,000 was looted and emptied by pro-Indonesian militias and is the last part of East Timor to be secured by peacekeepers with INTERFET, the Australian-led international force.
