Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – Hundreds of children affected by the mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, risk dropping out of school because their parents can no longer afford to pay for their education.

Some 2,400 people, 387 of them school-aged children, currently live in makeshift homes in Porong market.

Lilik Kamina, a mudflow victim and radio presenter at Swara Porong, a local station run by victims to publicize their plight, said parents had spoken on the radio about their worries over their children's education.

"I also hear pleas from girls who say their parents can no longer pay school fees and ask them to look for work instead," Lilik told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

She said mudflow victims had been languishing in temporary shelters for more than two years now and faced tremendous difficulties making ends meet, much less paying for their children's education.

She said the situation was deteriorating because PT Lapindo Brantas, the company widely blamed for the disaster, had stopped compensation payments to the families as of May 1, despite the fact most of the victims are unemployed.

Several people at the shelter complained of the rising prices of staple foods and the lack of clean water.

Iswahyuningsih, 38, said her family could no longer afford fish and chicken. She said she and her husband Karnoto, 40, who earns less than Rp 30,000 (US$3.30) per day as a manual laborer, often had to skip meals to save up money for school fees for their daughter, Dian Utami, 13.

She said the fees were in arrears for the past six months, and her relatives were unwilling to lend her money.

"I don't know if we can afford to keep Dian in school," she told the Post. A number of welfare organizations and individuals have granted scholarships and provided basic learning facilities and makeshift classrooms.

Schools such as the Muhammadiyah school continue to offer scholarships and financial assistance to victims of the mudflow.

Meanwhile, the government and Lapindo have not reached an agreement on what to do about those still living at Porong market.

"This is a form of intimidation by the government and Lapindo to force the displaced people into accepting the unfair compensation they're peddling," said Paring Waluyo, an activist fighting for the victims' rights.

He said the victims would continue seeking justice in the case. They were prepared to continue eking out an existence at the shelter to highlight their condition until a mutually beneficent agreement was reached with Lapindo, he said.