Indonesia orders army escorts for aid workers

INDONESIA yesterday ordered foreign aid workers in tsunami-devastated Aceh province to have military escorts in areas facing violence by insurgents, even as the vice-president welcomed a cease-fire offer by the rebels.

The total death toll from the disaster rose to more than 157,000.

Relief groups have not reported any security problems in Aceh, where rebels have fought a low-level separatist war against government troops for three decades, and some worried that the new restrictions could harm their reputation for independence.

"We discourage such actions because it blurs the distinction between humanitarian and military efforts here," said Eileen Burke of Save the Children.

However, Indonesian military spokesman Col Ahmad Yani Basuki said in a telephone interview that the army considers only the areas around the provincial capital Banda Aceh and the stricken coastal town of Meulaboh safe for foreigners.

"Other areas aside from that are potential trouble spots," he said. Anyone going to the troubled zones must take military escorts.

Health officials, meanwhile, planned a massive spraying campaign starting Friday in Indonesia's disaster zone to head off the threat of malaria, which one expert said could kill up to 100,000 people in the coming months if authorities don't act quickly to kill mosquitoes.

Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry raised the country's official death toll to 110,229, an increase of nearly 4,000. Sumatra island's Aceh province was worst hit, with the number of people missing there at more than 12,000, with 703,518 homeless survivors.

Death tolls also went up in India by 345, to 10,672 and in Sri Lanka by six, to 30,899. The overall toll across 11 nations stands at 157,642.

Rebel leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a cease-fire they declared hours after the December 26 earthquake.

Indonesia's vice-president welcomed the cease-fire offer.

Security fears also have restricted aid deliveries in Sri Lanka, where Tamil Tiger rebels have accused Indian and US forces of being sent to spy on them.

In India's remote Andaman islands, Red Cross officials said relief supplies had disappeared from the docks in Port Blair, the territory's capital, and were later found to have been taken by government workers.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said damage to Indian Ocean fisheries was worse than originally estimated, with thousands of fishermen killed or displaced and fleets of boats destroyed.

In Sri Lanka, more than 7,500 fishermen were killed and 5,600 are missing, 80% of boats were destroyed, and 10 of its 12 main harbours devastated.

Two-thirds of the fishermen in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, died.

Thailand's fisheries suffered an estimated $49.6 million in damage, with 4,500 boats destroyed.