Indonesia Limits Aid Workers to Cities

Indonesia on Tuesday told aid workers helping tsunami victims in its worst-hit region, Aceh province, not to venture beyond two large cities on Sumatra island because they could be attacked by militants.

The country’s head of relief operations said agencies needed permission to work outside the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and the ravaged west coast town of Meulaboh.

Asked if Aceh, where the army and separatist rebels have clashed for decades, was unsafe for international aid workers, Budi Atmaji said, “Yes, in some places.”

The rebels, however, said they would never attack aid workers, who in turn said they were not overly worried. “In no way has it impacted or diminished our goal to move about or to access populations,” said United Nations relief official Kevin Kennedy.

Indonesian military chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto said in Banda Aceh that he had tried to contact rebels of the Free Aceh Movement about a formal cease-fire but had received no response.

Both sides made conciliatory gestures after the tsunami but have since accused each other of initiating clashes. Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda said the government and the separatists had reached a “gentlemen’s agreement” not to launch an offensive.

Meanwhile, a Sumatran survivor on a makeshift raft was found by a passing ship two weeks after the disaster. Ari Afrizal, 21, said he prayed and lived on coconuts until the container ship Al Yamamah spotted him and took him to Malaysia.

“I told God I don’t want to die,” he told reporters late Monday, a day after his rescue. “I worried about my elderly parents and asked for a chance to take care of them.”