Quake in Papua claims at least 17 lives, thousands homeless

Disaster officials in Indonesia say 17 people are now known to have died and more than 4-thousand have been made homeless by last week’s earthquake in West Papua province.

Unicef Finances Papua’s Clean Water Systems

VIVAnews – UNICEF allocates fund of Rp 2.7 billion to help Papua Province in Indonesia develop clean water systems in a number of regencies and municipalities.

In addition, the fund will be channeled to Jayapura, Jayawijaya, Puncak Jaya, Biar Numfor and Jayapura Regency.

Free healthcare in Mimika a work in progress, says government

Markus Makur , The Jakarta Post, Timika

While the Mimika regency administration initially planned to provide free healthcare for all residents, the program has only been put into practice at community health centers (puskesmas) in 12 districts. “So far, the free healthcare program is unavailable at regency hospitals because of their high operating, infrastructure and facilities costs,” Mimika Regency Hospital director Dr. Fransiscus Tio said in a dialog with Mimika  Deputy Regent Abdul Muis at a recent free healthcare campaign in Mimika, Papua.

Famine-hit region of Indonesia’s Papua proposes mass-relocation

Yahukimo District Head Ones Pahabol has announced a proposal to
prevent further famine by relocating hinterlands based residents
to a location close to the district capital of Dekai.

According to Pahabol, the relocation would be completed within
10-15 years and involve 200,000 families, with priority
initially given to the Unaukam, Kemial, Mek and Yali tribes.

Protect Papuan from Cholera

The story about cholera epidemic in West Papua was used by separatist group by telling the world about the natural demographic genocide by Indonesia government. In reality, the health problem is a national problem and it happens in almost every remote area in Indonesia. Indonesian government should pay more serius attention to what happen to its people, including in West Papua.

In West Papua’s cholera epidemic, usually it spread very fast in a swamp area or during rainy season. It getting worse because the huts are full of smoke, pigs walk freely around the place, no toilets are available. Clean water comes from a dubious steam. School and health post are left behind without staff. There are gardens everywhere, but the crop gets flooded during the rainy season. The local and central government respond is also very slow due to its incapability to give quick respond to disaster and epidemic case.

A very objective and interesting story from dokter van de wereled can be a good source for understanding the reality in West Papua. The story is about cholera eppidemic in the highland of regions of paniai.