We've got as many as 150-thousand people who have gone from East Timor to West Timor, many of them have probably been taken there against their will. About 100-thousand East Timorese reportedly are concentrated in the border town of Atambua. Mr. Janowski says these people are scattered in groups of up to one-thousand in the hills. He describes the conditions in the makeshift camps as appalling. He says the refugees have no shelter, food and medicine.
Water is a major problem.
He says the Agency has received reports that every day, a number of infants, sick and elderly people are dying. We know that their situation is terrible from a humanitarian point of view and is also quite dire from a security point of view. The militias hunt down pro- independence people. Some men have been taken away by the militias to an unknown fate. Mr. Janowski says the East Timorese are totally unprotected.