Dili – Is there a conspiracy of silence within our media about conditions in East Timor? Sister Fabiol Gusmao, who runs Carmelite health clinics and an orphanage in Dili and dispenses food and medical aid to starving people, recently sent a despairing call for food to the Mary MacKillop Sisters in Sydney.

She said that up to 90 malnourished children per day were coming to one clinic alone, which is in the town of Maubara, about 45km west of Dili. She reported some horrifying statistics about the physique of three of these children: a 12-year-old girl weighing six kilograms, and two brothers, four and six years old, both weighing four kilograms.

Sister Joan Westblade, who is in Timor helping with medical aid in the Catholic clinics, says the Timorese are still desperately short of food, particularly protein food like dried beans and peas, fish and meat.

The former Independent MP for Manly, Dr Peter MacDonald, who recently returned from East Timor , has released figures about deaths from TB which could indicate that about 15 to 20 people die every day from this disease in East Timor. Twenty-five years of starvation and malnutrition have contributed greatly to the severity of diseases like TB, malaria and dengue fever.

[Ian Hodges, Aid co-ordinator, Australia East Timor Association, June 5, Bundeena.]