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| Wednesday, 19 January 2005 |
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Tsunami-ravaged Aceh Neighbours become new family for survivors BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Tuesday (AFP) With families decimated by the onslaught of waves that killed almost 115,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province, neighbourly relationships are quickly replacing blood ties as survivors turn to friends for support and care. "I am now entirely alone, I have no family left," said Andi Firmansyah, who lost his siblings, parents, wife and eight-year-old son in the December 26 disaster. Like many survivors, Firmansyah found himself in a displaced persons' camp shortly after the tsunamis swept away his fishermen's hamlet of Tenggiri in Ule Lhee village on Aceh's coast, just north of the capital of Banda Aceh. "But there was no one I could turn to, no one I can share my grief with," he said. Firmansyah eventually met with several of his neighbours there and began to search the large camps for others. They found 174 people, out of the hamlet's population of 629. They were allowed to use an empty plot of land not far from the main camp in Mata'ie a few kilometres (miles) southwest of Banda Aceh and managed to acquire a large tent, but not large enough to accommodate everyone. "The children, the elderly and the sick were sent to the homes of their relatives elsewhere and there is now only 35 of us here," said Wawan, a fisherman who has been appointed as the head of the group. "We are here together and that is now my family," said Wawan, 42, who also lost his entire family in the disaster. The former motorized fishing boat owner also lost his vessel, which was carried by the waves to a bridge kilometres away. Only two of his four-man crew survived. Other similar groupings based on neighbourhood or village affinities have formed in the displaced persons' camps. Wawan said that groups had come together for two of the three other hamlets of Ule Lhee - Bawal and Kakap. Tongkol, the fourth hamlet, was, unlike the three others, predominantly populated by migrants from other regions of Aceh - a mixed community that offered less cohesion. "We are spread in several locations. A few of us are here," said Ali Ibrahim, formerly of Tongkol. He now shares a tent with several other homeless from the same subdistrict but different villages. In the muddy main camp of Mata'ie, Bustaman heads a group of 80 people grouped together. All are from Lamjabat, a village close to Ule Lhee. Bustaman, a village elder who has been appointed by the group as their leader, said the presence of familiar faces helped alleviate the grief and suffering they were all going through. "We are always reminded that we are not alone, that other people we know share the same fate," Bustaman said. Firmansyah said that a further incentive to remain as a group based on a neighbourhood was that the authorities were only doling out relief to units of people, not to individuals. However many of these groups were formed before they knew about the regulations. Hasballah Saad, a native Acehnese and former Indonesian government human rights minister, said close ties had traditionally existed between neighbours in Aceh and he was not surprised they were supporting each other. "In times like this, the 'Seudara Linka' (neighbourly ties) have become a bond stronger than blood ties," Saad, speaking from Jakarta, told AFP by telephone. "And for many survivors, neighbours have now replaced their lost family members as a source of support and care." Leilah, a fish seller in her early 30s, lost her only two children and an adolescent adopted boy in the tsunamis. "These are the faces that I have known for a long time," Leilah, who is staying in the same group as Firmansyah and Wawan, said when asked why she did not seek shelter with her relatives inland. "We are a family, sharing the same fate and bearing the same burden." |
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