Timor: two-day assistance review

UNHCR today began a two-day meeting with representatives of UN agencies and NGOs to review assistance activities in West Timor. This followed the cancellation last week of a programme to register remaining East Timorese refugees in West Timor because of continuing harassment and intimidation of aid workers and refugees by pro-Indonesian ex-militias. The Geneva-based director of UNHCR's Asia bureau, François Fouinat, is attending the meeting.

Normal assistance activities are continuing in the meantime, except in the Kupang camps - which house some 25,000 refugees. Because of continuing tensions there, only essential staff are making brief visits to these camps, where food distribution has been taking place since yesterday. Last week, there was a slight increase in the number of returns. Around 800 refugees went back overland and by boat to East Timor. Today, 200 refugees sailed from the West Timor capital of Kupang for Dili in East Tim