UN Warns of Aceh Crisis by BBC News 2:34pm 24th May, 2003   23.5.2003    Village life under threat in Aceh offensive    The United Nations has warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where government troops this week launched their biggest offensive in years against separatist rebels.    More than 280 schools have been burnt and destroyed, depriving 60,000 children of education, the UN Children's Fund - Unicef - said in a statement.    And it says basic health services have collapsed.    "We are launching an appeal to the warring parties to protect the rights of children as well as the education system," Unicef spokesman Damien Personnaz said.    Separatist militants and government forces have blamed each other for arson attacks which have destroyed hundreds of schools in the long-running Aceh conflict.    The UN believes tens of thousands people, many of them children, have been displaced in the current surge of fighting, and they say this figure could rise dramatically.    A Unicef plane is due to leave Copenhagen on Sunday for Aceh bringing 20 tonnes of basic health equipment, enough to meet the needs of 200,000 people for three months.    The numbers of displaced people in the current round of fighting is disputed by the Indonesian authorities - the Aceh deputy governor Aswar Abubakar said that so far 23,000 refugees have fled their homes.    The new military offensive began on Monday after the collapse of peace talks in Tokyo.    The government says its forces have killed 58 rebels, but they have not revealed how many of their own men have been lost in the process.    As the fighting goes on, villages in parts of northern Aceh are reporting that homes are being raided at night by unidentified armed men. The men are said to be confiscating identity documents, without which civilians cannot safely move about.    The BBC's Rachel Harvey has been to one of the villages, Simpang Ujong Blang. She say nobody knows for certain who is behind the raids, but they are systematic and well-organised and the affect on Aceh's civilians is crippling. Anyone caught travelling without documents is likely to be arrested on suspicion of being a rebel sympathiser.    So the people of Simpang Ujong Blang are staying at home, but supplies are running out.    Travel between major towns is now extremely difficult and only limited amounts of food and fuel are getting through.    Fresh details have been emerging of alleged executions by Indonesian troops.    The BBC's Orlando de Guzman has made a second visit to the site of an incident on Wednesday, in the northern village of Mapa Mamplam, and has been told by witnesses that boys, one as young as 12, were among the victims.    Military chiefs have denied the allegations, saying that civilians are never targeted. They asked the victims to stand in front of the rice fields and then they killed them one by one    The villagers at Mapa Mamplam said a group of seven boys and men, aged between 12 and 20, were sleeping in a hut when a group of Indonesian soldiers dragged them out.    A witness told our correspondent that some of the group were then shot one by one at close range. Three or four others were then told to run, before being shot in the back, the villager said.    In his first visit to the village, our correspondent saw four bodies with bullet wounds to the back of the head.    Major-General Endang Suwarya, the commander overseeing the Aceh campaign has insisted that no civilians were killed.    But Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said rebels no longer wear military uniform, and therefore are difficult to distinguish from the local population.    The breakdown of peace talks ended a five-month-old ceasefire that had raised hopes of a permanent resolution to the 26-year conflict.    The failed peace deal offered Aceh an autonomous government by 2004, which would have been allowed to keep 70% of the revenue generated from the province's rich oil reserves. Visit the related web page
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item