AFP News agency
US preparing to scale down Aceh relief operations
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia
- The US navy is preparing to scale down its tsunami relief operations in Aceh after three weeks of crucial helicopter missions, a senior officer said Saturday.
“We’re kind of in a transition phase right now,” Captain Larry Burt, commander of the air wing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, told AFP. “We have not gotten orders to leave yet.”
He said command and control facilities had already been withdrawn back to the Abraham Lincoln from Aceh. “We’re reduced our footprint,” Burt said.
US helicopters are currently continuing to perform the same number of relief missions but, in preparation for a departure, the navy is providing the United Nations and militaries from other nations with information on landing zones and flight patterns, he said.
“We’re trying to get the UN helicopters and some of the other countries’ helicopters here to join in and allow us to turn it over to them so we can go.”
Since their mercy mission began at the start of January, US navy helicopters have flown more than 1,220 trips, according to Lieutenant Commander John Bernard.
The helicopters have been vital in getting aid to isolated survivors along Aceh’s west coast. Many areas are still unreachable by land with roads destroyed in the tsunamis yet to be repaired.
US marine helicopters from the USS Bonhomme Richard have also been operating further down the coast from Banda Aceh, delivering aid in and around the key town of Meulaboh.
The vessel has now left the area and has been replaced by another amphibious assault ship, the USS Essex.
Chris Lom, of the intergovernmental International Organization for Migration, said a US withdrawal even within a week’s time would ”not necessarily” create a problem for the aid distribution.
However, it would lead to a reshuffle of some aid distribution channels.
“We’ll have to start putting more stuff on boats,” said Lom, whose organization has been in charge of organizing the transport of nearly all non-military donations reaching Aceh since the December 26 tsunami.