By Devi Asmarani
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| Vice President Jusuf Kalla (left) at UNICEF’s stand at the Tsunami Expo accompanied by UNICEF’s Banda Aceh Field Office Coordinator Umar bin Abdul Azis (second left) and UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2014/Devi Asmarani |
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, 26 December 2014 - Thousands of people gathered in Aceh today in a solemn and moving ceremony to remember the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated much of Indonesia’s westernmost province 10 years ago today.
Many survivors as
well as local and foreign dignitaries attending the ceremony at the Blang Padang
public park in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh burst into tears as they listened
to poems and songs that were performed accompanied by photos and videos of the
disaster.
Acehnese singer
Rafly led the audience to sing along with him to a haunting folk song in the
local dialect, and prominent poet Taufik Ismail read a poem that recalled the
giant waves that swept about 170,000 people to their death.
"Thousands
of corpses were sprawled in this field,” said Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the
ceremony. “There were feelings of confusion, shock, sorrow, fear and suffering.
We prayed.”
But he
said the massive help received for Aceh immediately after the tsunami, which
left nearly half a million people displaced, helped revive the spirit of the
survivors.
Mr Kalla, who was deputy to President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the time, stressed the importance of swift international relief efforts, including
rapid delivery of aid, victims search and logistics distribution.
“It was
impossible for the government to rehabilitate the impacted areas without
international help. Within 10 days, we held a UN summit in Jakarta, and within
hours of the summit, all had pledged US$5 billion to finance the rehabilitation
and reconstruction process in Aceh,” he said. The money was used to rebuild
roads, hospitals, houses and mosques, he added.
In the aftermath
of the tsunami, UNICEF played an important role in saving children from death
and diseases, helping them overcome their traumatic experience, bringing them
back to school and uniting them with their surviving parents or other caregivers.
Thanks to
unprecedented support and unprecedented donations of US$336 million for Aceh
alone, the organization was able to roll out a large-scale emergency response,
followed by strategic investment in the province’s long-term development based
on the principle of “Building Back Better”.
Among UNICEF’s key contributions
was the support provided to nearly 3,000 children who were orphaned or separated
from their parents. UNICEF and partners managed to reunite around 110 of them
with surviving parents, while the remaining children were placed with their
extended families or in institutional care. UNICEF also successfully advocated for
their protection from trafficking.
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A boy looks at a display of photographs of missing children
at the UNICEF-supported Child Center in the TVRI camp for displaced people. Parents looking for their children could register their photographs and details
at the center © UNICEF/NYHQ2005-0507/Donnan
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UNICEF Indonesia Representative Gunilla Olsson commended the people of Indonesia’s western-most province Aceh for their resilience and their achievements in rising from devastation.
“The tremendous effort by the
Acehnese people, supported by the international community, to re-build even
better what the waves took away, definitely paid off. In fact, the
reconstruction based on the principle of Building Back Better has translated
into better opportunities for children to grow up healthy and develop their
potential,” said Ms. Olsson.
The ceremony also reflected
on the valuable lessons learned from the devastation, which is particularly
important for Indonesia given its frequent natural disasters.
“There can’t be
any bigger lesson than the loss of more than 100,000 people,” said Aceh
Governor Zaini Abdullah, adding the tsunami had brought attention to the importance
of disaster mitigations.
“It has laid the
ground for the Aceh’s government’s programme on disaster risk reduction which
is now included in our medium-term development plan,” he added.
Also at the
ceremony, Shuya Takahashi, Chief of Reconstruction Policy Section and Environmental Future
City Promotion Office for the city of Higashi Matsushima, Japan, shared his
city’s experience following the 2011 tsunami that killed 1,109 people and
affected 23,000 households. The two cities have recently agreed to share
information and experience in their bids to mitigate disasters.
“Indonesia
and Japan have lost a lot. Let’s not let this happen again,” he said.
