John Martinkus, Salale – Indonesian military and New Zealand troops mix freely on the bridge that forms the border here. It is hot, isolated and boring, surrounded by crocodile-infested mangroves. The main problems for the New Zealand troops here are the mosquitoes carrying dengue fever and malaria.

This is Salele, the southernmost crossing point of the East Timorese border with Indonesian-controlled West Timor. It is the entry point for returning East Timorese to the most isolated and devastated part of East Timor that is still struggling under UN administration to restore even the most basic services.

The nearby town of Suai, once the regional centre for an area that contained more than 60,000 people, still has no power, telephones or reliable water supply. At night, the town of more than 27,000 people – living in burnt out buildings and under blue UN-supplied tarpaulins – resembles a medieval city, with people sitting in small groups around oil lamps and fires, passing the time.

The people here complain that the UN is not doing enough to improve the situation. "Look at the NGOs – here they come with their cars and build offices but still we don't get any food," said Adrianno Nascimiento, a local resident and political activist.

The first stage of the emergency food distribution has finished. The World Food Program now says it is targeting those most at risk, such as households with no male head and the refugees who continue to return from the camps across the border in West Timor, where they fled last September.

But some of those returning are former militia members, a situation which brings NGOs into direct conflict with CNRT, the pro-independence East Timorese political party that forms the only local administration.

Robin Taudevin, an organiser for independent aid organisation Timor Aid, said working under such conditions wasn't easy. "To deal with the local communities we have to deal with CNRT," he said. "That way they can mobilise people to assist. But CNRT is a political organisation and down here in the south-west, where there was so much killing and destruction by whole communities that were involved in the militia, we have CNRT sometimes trying to punish certain areas or individuals."

The percentage of refugees returning now who have been involved with the militia is higher here than anywhere else. On Friday, ten of the 93 refugees who crossed at the Salele border post were isolated by UNHCR for their own protection. They had admitted to UNHCR officials in the camps in West Timor that they had been involved with militia and they feared reprisals.