Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – After living in a tent in a tsunami refugee camp for months, Cut Samsidar left Aceh Besar regency for Medan two months ago to work as housemaid.
She said she could no longer stand the conditions in the camp as aid was no longer forthcoming. She still is at a loss to know why the assistance has been cut off.
"Through the newspapers and television, we can see that foreign aid is continuing to pour into Aceh. But where is it all going?" asked Samsidar, 39, who lost her husband to the disaster that left over 130,000 people dead in Aceh alone.
She said her life had greatly improved since she started working. She, along with her children, live in her employer's house. "I love to be here, although I'm only a housemaid and have to work as a household assistant. My children and I have enough to eat," she said.
Samsidar is only one of the displaced who have been made suffer by the complicated processes involved in aid delivery, which only serve to keep the aid from those who need it.
There is clear evidence that the distribution system is in a mess. The Belawan Customs and Excise Office has detained 117 containers filled with tsunami aid, including food, clothes, medicines and generators, at Belawan Port in Medan for the past eight months due to what it claims is inadequate documentation.
The aid was sent by donors from countries like the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark and China.
Samsidar said she suspected that unscrupulous individuals were deliberately halting the aid distribution so as to profit themselves. "It doesn't make any sense. It's been eight months and the aid has never arrived. Whatever the reason, the donations must be delivered immediately because the tsunami victims need them badly," Samsidar said.
Several months ago, canned fish donated by the World Food Program (WFP) to tsunami victims were instead found being sold in Medan markets.
Secretary to the North Sumatra Disaster Management Committee, Edy Aman Saragih, who is also the acting regent of Nias Selatan, said on Saturday there was a major likelihood that the tsunami aid officially being detained in Belawan port could actually have been stolen.
He said there were around 100 families who were still living in the refugee camps in Nias Selatan and badly in need of food. Their health, he said, had continued to worsen due to food shortages.
"We have no longer been distributing money to the tsunami victims in Nias Selatan for the past few months. Except for a number of foreign non-governmental organizations that are still providing medical assistance," Edy told The Jakarta Post.