Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Around 128,000 East Timorese people staying in numerous refugee camps in East Nusa Tenggara Province are facing starvation as their food supply is nearly exhau

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – The government has extended its deadline for 128,000 (sic) Timorese to vacate refugee camps in West Timor until June 20, allowing them more time to decide on t

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Possible clashes are looming between East Timorese refugees and Indonesian farmers seeking to reclaim land used to accommodate the refugees on the border of We

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Despite the cancellation of humanitarian assistance as of January 1, 2002, the remaining 128,000 or so East Timorese people taking refuge in West Timor has bec

Jakarta – Economic factors and not intimidation are now the main reason why many East Timorese refugees are reluctant to go home from Indonesia, the UN refugee agency said Monday.

Jakarta – The safety of refugees is still guaranteed: Even though the government has abolished refugee status for the refugees from East Timor with effect from 31 December 2001, Command

Jakarta – Indonesian authorities have ceased providing food and cash for tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees stuck in squalid camps in West Timor, an official said Wednesday.

East Timorese asylum seekers might find it hard to settle back in their homeland even though it was technically safe to return, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.

Indonesia has extended its aid programs to some 70,000 East Timorese refugees by one month to the end of January, allowing them more time to decide between repatriation and resettlement

Oslo – Most of the 60,000 East Timorese refugees still abroad are likely to return by the end of 2002 and any linked to pro-Jakarta militias will be treated fairly, the territory's chie

Atambua – A man lobbed a Korean-made grenade into the middle of a crowded East Timorese refugee camp in Manumutin village, Atambua, early Sunday but the device failed to explode, a loca

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – As of January 2002, the government will no longer provide any financial or food assistance to East Timorese refugees in West Timor as it will reinstate the Ind

Jakarta – Indonesian police said on Wednesday they had arrested an Egyptian suspected of being the chief smuggler responsible for organising a refugee boat for illegal migrants which sa

Kupang – Afghan and Iraqi asylum-seekers staying at an Indonesian police college here quietly protested Wednesday against their treatment by the Australian military and international re

Jakarta – Indonesia's navy said on Wednesday it would not detain any asylum seekers found on boats in the country's waters and would even feed needy refugees before they resumed their j

Jakarta – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Tuesday that it has helped repatriate 188,646 East Timorese refugees from Indonesia's West Timor in the past two years.

Hong Kong – East Timor's future president Xanana Gusmao has recalled his fury when Australia refused to accept temporarily a handful of East Timorese students fleeing persecution in Ind

Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Indonesian police on Monday forcibly evicted 100 Middle Eastern asylum seekers, some of them screaming hysterically, who had been holed up at the UN refugee

More than 3,200 East Timorese refugees returned home from Indonesia during October, the UN High Commission for Refugees said Monday in Dili, underlining it was the biggest one-month inf

Jakarta – The Indonesian government has decided to halt humanitarian assitance to East Timorese refugees in West Timor at the end of the year, a senior minister said in remarks publishe

Vaudine England, Jakarta – Police deny allegations they forced asylum seekers at gunpoint on to a boat that subsequently sank, drowning about 350 people – but they admit "rogue" officer

Jakarta – Indonesian police said on Thursday they were investigating a report that policemen pointed their guns at asylum seekers who wanted to get off an overcrowded boat that sank las

Yemris Fointuna, Atambua – At least 800 East Timorese refugees, formerly grouped under the Mahidi militia group from Ainaro regency, returned to their homeland on Wednesday and received

Over 500 refugees crossed the border this morning in the second day of mass refugee returns from camps in Indonesian West Timor.

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Along with government aid for the 290,000 East Timorese remaining in Indonesia being discontinued at the end of December, the refugee status for people now liv

The Indonesian Government has shown new signs of its determination to rid itself of East Timorese refugees, and thousands of them are now likely to be forced back across the border with

Kupang – The government has said that, as of December this year, there will be no more humanitarian aid for around 290,000 East Timorese who opted to stay in Indonesia and are now livin

Kupang – Six people, including Adj. Brig.

Up to 1,663 illegal immigrants are known to have entered Indonesia in the past two years, Justice and Human Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra said yesterday.

Kupang – Of their own free will, hundreds of thousands of East Timorese who have been living in refugee camps in Indonesia's West Timor for the past two years, have now decided to retur

Jakarta – Indonesia expects to have repatriated 190,000 East Timorese refugees, currently still living in East Nusa Tenggara province, by the end of 2002, a minister said on Wednesday.

Medan – More than 500 families of Acehnese who fled clashes between separatist rebels and the military have encroached on Gunung Leuser National Park, a non-governmental organization re

Kupang – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has decided to reopen its base in West Timor to help channel humanitarian aid to some 290,000 East Timorese refugees c

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Australia has rejected an Indonesian plea to fast-track people assessed to be genuine refugees from Indonesia, despite pressuring the Government in Jakarta to

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – With the police and military leaders repeatedly labelling him an agent of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Mr Nasir Djamil knows it is no longer safe to

Lindsay Murdoch – The smugglers' plan went like clockwork.

Chris Brummitt, Nusakambangan Island – A group of Afghan refugees detained for two weeks after their ship sank off an Indonesian prison island threatened Saturday to go on a hunger stri

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – East Timor's leaders are planning an international campaign to pressure the Indonesian Government to allow Timorese children separated from their parents at t

Mark Dodd, Dili – An East Timorese anti-independence leader said yesterday he would tell refugees in camps in West Timor that the world's newest country was on the road to democracy.

Vaudine England – Aid groups may be reluctant to return to refugee camps in West Timor with as many personnel as before, despite the UN giving the go-ahead for workers to go back.

On 6 and 7 June, the Indonesian government went ahead with controversial plans to register East Timorese refugees in West Timor and determine whether they wished to remain in Indonesia

Mark Dodd, Kupang – In what will probably be the last refugee repatriation voyage, 179 East Timorese boarded the Patricia Anne Hotung this week homeward bound for Dili and a fresh start

Jakarta – UN officials in East Timor raised concern Tuesday about the fate of refugees who chose to be repatriated from squalid camps in Indonesia during an Indonesian-run census last m

Only 666 of the 1,250 East Timorese refugees Indonesian authorities said wanted to return to their homeland last month have been able to do so, UN officials said on Tuesday.

Dili – As a UN security team toured refugee camps near Indonesian controlled West Timor's border with East Timor Tuesday, officials of the world body in Dili warned that pro-Jakarta mil

Atambua – Facing the prospect of resettling tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees, an Indonesian government delegation on Thursday appealed to pro-Jakarta militia leaders to retur

A leading Timorese aid worker has branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98% of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in West Timor did not want to go ho

A group of protesters has demonstrated outside the Indonesian consulate in Melbourne on the first day of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's Australian visit.

Kupang – Changes in the results of last week's registration of East Timorese refugees have aroused suspicion in Kupang of the possible manipulation of registration results.

Washington – A leading Timorese aid worker on Wednesday branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98 percent of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in Wes