NZ envoy helps save thousands in Timorese camp

Children at the Don Bosco centre, where 13,000 people are waiting in poor conditions until the violence subsides.

DILI - If there is a hell on earth it must be Don Bosco, a Catholic training centre in the East Timorese capital of Dili.

Don Bosco, with accommodation for 150, is now home to about 13,000 of the most desperate of Dili's terrified residents.

They remain alive largely because of New Zealand Ambassador Ruth Nuttall, who has provided water, sanitation and at least a show of strength since Timor plunged into renewed carnage on April 28.

Ms Nuttall has now extended similar help to other compounds, churches and schools, where tens of thousands of people are living in squalor and on the verge of starvation, packed together in what has the real potential to become mass incubators for lethal epidemics.

"They are a very dispirited and frightened bunch of people," Ms Nuttall said yesterday.

Most are at Don Bosco because they have nowhere else to go. Many would not survive outside its gates.

Gangs of thugs with machetes and sometimes firearms prowl the streets around the compound. Inside, ethnic rivalries have flashed into bloody violence.

Two new refugees were admitted on Saturday with machete wounds, one seriously hurt.

Many have seen their homes and possessions lost in flames. The noise, smells, and press of people are overwhelming. Any germ of hope is grabbed and cheered. But every potential omen of doom is flashed around the camp in minutes, punching the people back into despair.

This is the spontaneous flock of Father Adriano de Jesus, head of the training centre and now responsible for the protection and sustenance of a population that sleeps cheek to jowl and swarms across almost every square metre of the gated compound.

Ms Nuttall came across Don Bosco the day after the rioting began, arriving to scenes of tragic desperation around 4pm on April 29. What she saw shook her to the core.

Immediately she used her mobile phone to call a local waste contractor, hiring the only water tanker available in Dili, and all 16 available portable toilets. Ten arrived that night, six the next day.

Daily deliveries by the 10,000-litre water tanker have kept the population that rapidly soared from 8000 to 13,000 alive. Sanitation and a New Zealand Army medical tent and visits by Cuban doctors have kept illness at bay - at least for the moment. Easing the terror has been more difficult.

Don Bosco is in the suburb of Comoro, where the riots first broke out and where some of the worst violence has taken place.

Streets are pockmarked by burned shanties. Others are still being set alight.

Rival gangs roam the district, exacting revenge and committing brutal acts of mindless violence. No one is safe. Police, Army and Government officials have sent their families to Don Bosco because they cannot guarantee their safety outside.

When other refugees saw this, their fear and despair deepened. When officials' families left the others were terrified this signalled imminent attack.

Apart from the walls there is no defence there.

New Zealand soldiers made what visits they could, both to give some hope to those inside and to warn thugs outside that armed help was available - even if it was merely show at that stage.

Now the newly arrived and heavily armed Kiwis sent to Dili will make daily patrols there.

On Saturday when a small convoy arrived, they were cheered and mobbed like film stars.

"This is the first time today we see soldiers," said Raihota Thsi. "No one else comes but New Zealand. We are very grateful, very grateful."

Ms Nuttall had also budgeted to provide materials for the rebuilding of hundreds of homes destroyed in the first wave of violence, a project now on hold.

She has also ordered the water tankers to other compounds, especially a church run by Cassonians where another 13,000 are packed in similarly appalling conditions.

Several portable toilets have also been taken there because no others are available. Until peace returns this is the best that can be done.