UNITED NATIONS EMERGENCY COORDINATOR SAYS SOME RELIEF WORK IN TSUNAMI-AFFECTED INDONESIA SLOWER THAN HOPED

UNITED NATIONS EMERGENCY COORDINATOR SAYS SOME RELIEF WORK

IN TSUNAMI-AFFECTED INDONESIA SLOWER THAN HOPED

Too Few Victims in Permanent Housing as Rainy Season Begins;

Plan Is to Have All People out of Tents before Next Downpour

NEW YORK, 17 October (OCHA) -- Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland has concluded his mission to tsunami-affected Indonesia, having witnessed for himself the situation on the ground along affected coastlines, including in Calang. 

Commenting upon the massive relief efforts that followed the destruction of 26 December last year, he said that the people of Aceh, other Indonesians and internationals had done well during the emergency phase.  “We have been feeding more or less everybody who is in need.  We provided medical assistance; we provided water; and we provided sanitation in very difficult circumstances.  We feel like we can be proud of what we did achieve in the emergency phase.” 

However, he also noted, the reconstruction has gone slower than hoped and the belief that it would be possible to provide permanent housing before the current rainy season was a miscalculation.  Too few are in permanent housing with the rains now starting. 

The Emergency Relief Coordinator underscored the need for more and better coordination to ensure that the people of Aceh are able to move into permanent houses before the next rainy season.  “It is not acceptable that many organizations do their own small projects without coordinating with anybody else”, he stressed.

To that end, he noted, the United Nations has put in place a strong Recovery Coordinator, Eric Morris, who has been in charge of developing a six-month transitional and permanent shelter plan.

The plan aims to have all people out of tents, more than 100,000, into new transitional shelter and tens of thousands of new permanent houses built within six months, with the ultimate goal of getting inhabitants into permanent houses before the next rainy season.

For further information, please call:  Stephanie Bunker, OCHA- New York, tel: +1 917 367 5126, mobile: +1 917 892 1679; Kristen Knutson, OCHA- New York, tel: +1 917 367 9262; Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA-Geneva, tel: +41 22 917 2653, mobile: +41 79 473 4570.

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For information media • not an official record