The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) today announced that it is distributing emergency home delivery kits to mothers in East Timor, which currently has little or no maternity care available.
UNFPA said its delivery kits - enough to serve a population of 400,000 - will provide the most basic supplies to perform a clean, safe delivery at home, where an estimated 85 per cent of births in East Timor take place. About 60 per cent of home deliveries are not attended by trained health personnel.
East Timor's maternal mortality rate - the number of women who die from pregnancy related causes - is among the highest in the world at around 830 per 100,000 live births, UNFPA said. Women often die due to lack of transport to clinics.
In addition to the kits, other UNFPA supplies are being distributed for use at local health centres and clinics by trained midwives and doctors to carry out normal deliveries, to perform sutures under local anaesthesia, and to stabilize potentially dangerous conditions before patients are transferred to a larger medical centre.
Meanwhile, in the first positive sign of Indonesian military cooperation, troops today arrested three militiamen after they threatened to physically assault staff with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at the Noelbaki camp.
The arrests were the first in a camp since the refugee influx began following the 30 August popular consultation in East Timor. Only 25 refugees repatriated from Noelbaki today. The camp hosts 7,000 refugees, half of whom have expressed a willingness to return home.
Elsewhere, UNHCR said it continues to receive reports of harassment of refugees by militias. Yesterday, 57 refugees arrived in the West Timor capital of Kupang from Soe to join a repatriation flight to Dili. They said one bus transporting refugees was stoned by militias as it left Soe, but no injuries were reported.
UNHCR said thousands of refugees have been heading for East Timor since the weekend, most returning on their own, as the approach of the rainy season is putting pressure on many refugees to repatriate. The four-month rainy season allows most Timorese to plant food crops they depend on for the rest of the year.
