UN chief visits tsunami devastation as death toll leaps to 165,000

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia-AFP
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan Friday toured the devastation from Asia‘s tsunamis as the world body took charge of the relief operation for the disaster which left over 165,000 dead.

A day after making an impassioned plea for almost a billion dollars in immediate aid, Annan flew into the Indonesian province of Aceh for a tour of the region which was the worst hit by last week’s killer waves. His visit comes two days after a stop here by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told a crisis summit Wednesday in Jakarta that Washington had disbanded a five-nation “coalition”, criticized as a challenge to UN authority.

The United Nations is mounting its largest ever relief operation to help tsunami victims but warned its efforts faced major obstacles as transport links and communications in Aceh had “essentially collapsed” in the disaster. Indonesia, and especially Aceh, should receive about 371 million dollars of the 977 million dollar overall appeal by Annan, the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency said.

“As many as two million people there are in need and one million of them require immediate assistance,” Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator Yvette Stevens told journalists in Geneva.
The confirmed death toll from the catastrophe soared to over 165,000 Friday as over 19,000 more deaths were confirmed. Indonesia‘s health ministry said the death toll in the country had risen to 113,306.

But the United Nations has warned that tens of thousands more dead may be as yet unaccounted for in Indonesia. World attention was also focused on the desperate plight of many survivors living in camps with limited drinking water and poor sanitation in Sri Lanka, where 30,615 people have been confirmed killed.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also headed Friday to Sri Lanka after saying he was awestruck by the devastation in Indonesia. The United Nations said some 167 million dollars from the emergency relief money would head to Sri Lanka.

“We are hungry, people are searching for food,” says Pakeela Ummah, a 48-year-old mother of three crammed into one of the makeshift camps in Kattankundy on Sri Lanka’s battered eastern coast.
Survivors in the camp said they had only enough to make one meal a day of rice and lentils, with little powdered milk for babies and just two litres of drinking water per family with an average of six children.

“The main problem is we don’t have food. The government is still sending more refugees but there is no assistance from the government,” says K. M. Muhad, who was appointed by the community to take charge of the camp. In India, the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF said it was counselling more than 100,000 children who were traumatised by the death of relatives in the tsunami-hit southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Fifty-two countries have reported dead or missing in the tsunami disaster, leading to the unprecedented level of pledges to help survivors. In Thailand British Foreign Minister Jack Straw says 49 Britons were killed and a further 391 are missing and considered “very likely” to be victims of the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.

“It’s impossible to tell the country of origin” for many of the victims, Straw told a press conference after touring the devastation on the island of Phuket in Thailand. “Given the enormity of this natural disaster, it is clear that for many families, a period of prolonged agony lies ahead,” he said.

“Some victims may never be identified, and my heart goes out to all those who face this terrible and I fear continuing ordeal.” Accompanied by Thai officials, Straw walked along Patong beach on Phuket island which was badly hit by the December 26 tsunami.

He also met with British victims of the tragedy at the Phuket International Hospital. Straw later met with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula to discuss the recovery efforts and moves to identify victims’ bodies.

Straw arrived here after attending a global emergency aid summit in Jakarta. He was to head to the Thai capital Bangkok later Friday. In Thailand, at least 2,510 foreigners were killed when they were swept away from the country’s touristy coastlines the day after Christmas.

Thailand‘s government insisted Friday that no foreign victims of the tsunami have been buried in mass graves or cremated, amid concerns in Western countries about the remains of their nationals.
But despite the outpouring of generosity, there were also growing concerns about how aid money will be spent.

Annan told the conference of 26 nations on Thursday that 977 million dollars was required now. In previous disasters, much of the aid pledged in the emotional immediate aftermath never materialized after the crisis passed out of the spotlight. “Many of the pledges have come to us in cash and in kind. We need the rest of the pledges to be converted into cash quickly,” Annan told the summit.

“We also need more people and more material to get the aid to those who are most in need, often in remote areas.” Foreign ministers and health and aid ministers of the European Union were due to hold hastily arranged talks Friday in Brussels on further ways to help the tsunami-hit countries.

Proposals being considered include debt relief for the afflicted countries, support for a tsunami alert system for the Indian Ocean region, and a “rapid response” humanitarian force for future catastrophes.
The EU’s presidency says the main aim is to coordinate ideas ahead of a UN-hosted donors’ conference in Geneva next week.

Louis Michel, the European Union commissioner for humanitarian action, warned of the danger of making inflated aid pledges that may not be honored. ?“I am interested in pledges which are really spent,” he said. ?British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said his government, which has pledged 50 million pounds (94 million dollars) would not engage in a bidding war with other countries to see which could offer the most.

The easy part is pledging money, “the much more difficult part is to ensure that the money pledged is first paid and secondly is then spent wisely and in a coordinated way,” said Straw, who was visiting southern Thailand disaster zones on Friday.

In Berlin, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he would seek to ensure, during a visit to the region later this week, that Germany‘s 500-million-euro (668-million-dollar) aid pledge is spent effectively.
Fischer said he was concerned that aid could be sidetracked for political reasons or because of civil conflicts in the area.

Japan has promised 500 million dollars in grant direct aid, with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowing at the Jakarta conference that Tokyo would disburse it immediately.
The Australian government has pledged one billion dollars in tsunami aid grants and interest free loans, the world’s largest package, while the Australian public has donated more than 120 million dollars.

7-1-2005

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