26 October -- The major priority for the United Nations in East Timor continues to be humanitarian assistance and emergency rehabilitation, the Secretary-General's envoy said today.
Ian Martin, the Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General, told a press conference in Dili this morning that other key tasks are the re-establishment of basic services and law and order, with a functioning police force and a justice system.
The World Bank, which will be setting a framework for longer term development and appealing to donors to assist in that process, will lead an assessment mission in the coming days, Mr. Martin added.
Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that returns by boat and by plane from Kupang in West Timor to Dili were continuing. About 2,000 returnees were expected to leave by ship from Kupang today, the fourth return by sea from the West Timor capital. Five airlift flights were also scheduled today from Kupang with around 500 returnees.
According to revised figures released by the Indonesian Government to UNHCR, there are 219,000 people from East Timor who are now in West Timor, with 60 per cent of them wanting to return home.
In other developments, the World Food Programme (WFP) today announced the launch of a $21.6 million appeal to widen its ongoing emergency food distribution to displaced people in East Timor and to start "food-for-work" rehabilitation projects in the ruined territory.
Under the six-month operation, scheduled to begin on 1 November, WFP will provide a "food basket" of maize, rice, cooking oil, canned fish and dried beans to some 413,000 East Timorese, enabling them to concentrate on restoring their homes, farms and livelihoods. The likelihood of a reduced maize crop will create serious food security problems over the next year, WFP said. It is undertaking a joint crop and food supply assessment mission with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in late November.
The WFP appeal will be incorporated into the UN consolidated humanitarian appeal for East Timor to be issued tomorrow in Geneva. This is expected to request some $200 million in aid through to June 2000.
