Catharine Munro, Jakarta – International aid groups are calling for countries including Australia to help head off starvation in the Indonesian province of West Timor.
A two-month survey conducted by five international agencies showed that thousands are facing an acute food shortage following East Timor's secession from Indonesia.
"A chronic food security problem has moved into an acute food security problem ... the situation is quite dire," said Donna Holden, program director for Save the Children UK, who led the survey.
"It's absolutely untenable for any people to be dying of starvation. We will be discussing with donors how to prevent that from happening."
West Timor and some surrounding islands were in the only region of the vast archipelago of more than 13,000 islands to suffer such food shortages, according to an official from the UN World Food Program.
"People don't starve to death in Indonesia," said the official who did not wish to be named. "The government is very good at providing resources, we are not looking at an African-style famine."
Food shortages are not unusual in West Timor, where crop failures from both drought and flood have occurred over the past few months. But pressures from East Timor's independence vote have ended some of the local population's so-called "coping mechanisms".
About half East Timor's population of more than 800,000 fled or were forcibly removed from their homes to West Timor during the military-abetted violence that followed a vote for independence in August 1999. And over the past three years refugees had cut down forests to grow crops, denying the local population a place to forage for food when crops failed.
West Timorese can no longer travel to East Timor to find day labour work on Indonesian government building projects. Finally, last December Jakarta stopped providing relief to remaining refugees in West Timor camps to encourage them to go home.
About 45,000 people remain in camps, a month after East Timor gained full independence on May 20, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees.
Hukman Renni, who has established the Presidium of East Timorese Refugees in the West Timor capital of Kupang, said the Indonesian government should restart aid.
"Now they are threatened with starvation and disease and this starvation will result in death of thousands of people in camps if the government of Indonesia does not change its view about stopping the assistance," he said.
With such an about-face unlikely, Save the Children's Holden said Australia would be one of the countries from whom the aid groups would be seeking funds.
Ausaid's director in Jakarta, Sam Zappia, said $6.6 million had already been given this year to help with the repatriation of refugees to East Timor. "At this point we haven't considered whether we will provide any other form of assistance," Mr Zappia said.