wfn.org | CWS Reopens West Timor Program

[CAROL.FOUKE@ecunet.org]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
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98NCC11/2/2000                                                                                    
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CWS REOPENS EMERGENCY PROGRAM IN KUPANG, WEST TIMOR

November 2, 2000, NEW YORK CITY - Ending a nearly two-month suspension of operations in West Timor following the murder by pro-Indonesia militias of three United Nations expatriate relief workers, Church World Service this week resumed its program in Kupang, West Timor's capital city, and in Atambua, on the East Timor border.

During the past year, CWS has assisted more than 10,000 refugees from East Timor with tents, blankets, food, bedding, mosquito nets and health and hygiene kits. They are among an estimated 120,000 refugees from East Timor who remain trapped in camps in West Timor.

CWS also is one a few groups to have trained counselors to assist survivors of the trauma in emergency situations, such as that of losing family members and homes and of being forcibly relocated.  Some two dozen CWS trained counselors are working in Atambua and Kupang.  

"East Timor has stabilized, under United Nations supervision, allowing UN agencies and hundreds of international humanitarian service groups to work there.  Fewer groups are helping meet basic needs of East Timorese who have fled to the West," said Rick Santos, CWS Interim Director for Social and Economic Development.  "CWS continues to help the most vulnerable East Timorese, and these are the people in the refugee camps in the West."

"Because our staff are Indonesian and Timorese, and thanks to international pressure for the disarming of the militias, we are able to reopen our Kupang office," Mr. Santos said.  "The United Nations has not yet returned."

Mr. Santos said CWS's four-person office is assessing current needs.  "No aid has gotten into the camps for nearly a month," he said.  "I am not sure what we will find, but I think we will find more a desperate situation in the camps."

Nearly 400 foreign aid workers, including several working for Church World Service, were evacuated to Indonesia and U.N.-administered East Timor following the murders.  Militia activity had been escalating for several weeks, and increasingly targeted international relief workers and local staff of international agencies.

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