Jean Philippe Chauzy (Extract) – Yesterday some 1,100 East Timorese refugees returned home to East Timor from the towns of Soe and Atambua in West Timor.

The movement, organised by the Indonesian West Timor Refugee Taskforce (Satlak) and funded by IOM, followed successful reconciliation talks between refugee leaders and government of East Timor.

Soe's refugee camps were previously regarded as a stronghold of the pro-Indonesian militias responsible for the widespread destruction in East Timor in September 1999.

The group included 60 former East Timorese members of the Indonesian army (TNI), as well as civil servants and their extended families.

Indonesian General Willem Da Costa, who was instrumental in encouraging the group to return, received the former soldiers' uniforms at a ceremony in Atambua yesterday, before they joined trucks to travel to the nearby Batugade border crossing point.

In Batugade, IOM trucks picked up the 352 families to take them on to their final destinations in Bobonaro, Ermera, Liquica, Dili and Los Palos districts. A second cross border movement of some 200 refugees is expected to take place at the southern border crossing point of Salele today.