ENI – Thousands of residents in Aceh — the area hardest hit by the December 2004 tsunami — remain in tents and other temporary shelter provided by the United Nations and international aid agencies. Such tents are common in the neighbourhood of Lampaseh Kota, a particularly affected area of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.
Recently, one of the residents of the neighbourhood, Afifuddin, 26, recounted to a group of visitors some of the frustrations of the last year. Lampaseh Kota, he said, had seen its population decimated from 5,000 to 1,000. He lost grandparents, nieces, nephews, a brother and a sister. Only a nephew survived. "The next step needs to be on making us independent," said Afifuddin, who has a degree in information technology.
The tsunami killed an estimated 232,000 people in different parts of Asia and even in far away East Africa, and it is believed as many as 170,000 perished in Aceh alone.
