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Homes remain elusive for Acehnese on Idul Fitri

Source
Jakarta Post - October 31, 2005

Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – It was almost dusk on Sunday, but a group of children at the refugee camp were still playing outside despite the mud after a heavy downpour in Banda Aceh.

It has been 10 months since the tsunami struck, but around 400 displaced people in the camp at Gano village in Lambaro Skep district in the Aceh capital are still living in tents, most of which are torn.

The problems facing the people here is not confined to wornout tents, but also the fact that the sea often floods their tents, which stand only a couple of dozen meters away from the sea, while the dam that used to keep the sea at bay, and was destroyed by the tsunami, has not been rebuilt.

"We're still stuck in these tents and will spend our Idul Fitri here. There are no preparations whatsoever for the holiday," a youth, Mukhlis, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Mukhlis and other Gano residents are bracing for the Islamic holiday, which falls on Wednesday and Thursday. To date, there are thousands of tsunami victims in the province who are still residing in tents as their houses have not been rebuilt or construction of their shelters has yet to be completed.

According to the Aceh Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR), there will be around 10,000 houses built by the end of the year. The work is being funded by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donor countries. The number is less than 10 percent of the 110,000 houses required by the some 500,000 people displaced by the Dec. 26 disaster.

An independent research center, the Aceh Institute, has predicted that the BRR will only be able to build 17,812 houses, a little over a half of its initial target of 30,000 houses in 2005. "Up until now, only 5,820 houses have been built," Lukman Age, the Institute's head of research and analysis, said on Saturday.

The problem, he said, was not only the insufficient supply of building materials, but funding as well since there were two major donors that had yet to realize their pledges: the Multi Donor Trust Fund Aceh Nias World Bank (MDTFANS-World Bank) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The MDTFANS-World Bank had promised to fund the construction of 25,000 houses while the ADB had sought to build 21,250 houses. "The BRR has done a pretty good job in coordinating the construction work. But it has failed to coordinate the development supposedly funded by the 'big boys'," Lukman was quoted by Antara as saying. The money from MDTFANS, he said, had still not been disbursed.

The ADB, meanwhile, was still revising its program, with the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) saying that the ADB has not met the requirement of proposing house construction projects based on the community-driven development concept. "A delay to the major programs will slow the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh," Lukman said.

The refugees will have to spend their idul Fitri in tents for the first time, with no holiday meals, let alone new clothes. "This is just so sad. The aid is not as much as it used to. We now only depend on the government's subsistence allowance," said Farida, a refugee in the Gue Gajah area of Banda Aceh.

With only three days to go to Idul Fitri, the allowances have yet to be disbursed. The government had promised to provide Rp 90,000 (around US$9) to each person to enable them to celebrate the holiday.

Some donor countries and NGOs have given "holiday gifts" for the refugees, such as the United Arab Emirates which donated a total of US$160,000. A Turkish NGO, Pasiad, meanwhile, has donated 2,000 boxed meals every day during the fasting month.

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