DILI: Baby Xestalino Soares lies fast asleep on a mat, sharing a cloth blanket with one of his older brothers, while his mother tries to cook as rain lashes the tarpaulin tent that has been their home for the past six months.
Days of heavy tropical downpours heralding the start of the monsoon season have brought fresh misery for thousands of refugees still holed up in makeshift shelters after fleeing deadly violence which rocked tiny East Timor in April and May.
“My youngest son, 18-months-old, has been suffering from fever since the rains began to fall, and he often has fits of coughing during the night,”lamented Adizinda Soares, pointing to the skinny Xestalino, the youngest of her brood of six.
Huge letters spell out “UNHCR” on the sides of the tarpaulin tent that has been their home since they fled Baucau district, 250 kilometres east of Dili, after her husband Carlos was shot dead by soldiers on April 28.
Soares and her children are among some 6,000 people sheltering in a tent city and sports hall at the Dom Bosco refugee camp, a school and community centre close to the Nicolau Lobato international airport.
A large banner near the gate still optimistically proclaims “Love Timor Leste, let us go to school.” About 155,000 people, or 15 per cent of East Timor’s population, fled their homes during the violence in April and May that followed the dismissal of about a third of the country’s fledgling military forces, who had deserted citing discrimination among the ranks.
At least 37 people were killed as the country descended into chaos after initial street protests by the dismissed soldiers quickly degenerated into street violence involving gangs of youths.
Most people have returned home since the deployment of Australian-led foreign peacekeepers, but the UN says there are still about 28,000 internally displaced people (IDP) in camps across Dili.
Up to 16,000 have nowhere to go as their houses were destroyed.
Acting UN envoy Finn Reske-Nielsen said the government had prepared emergency sites for people to move to avoid outbreaks of disease when the rains come.
“We know from other IDP situations elsewhere in the world, that if people live in flooded areas for an extended period of time, diseases will break out and you could have epidemics that will affect not just the IDP population but the wider population in the city,” Reske-Nielsen said.—AFP
