A couple of days ago, UNPol (with military support) conducted an operation to seek out illegal weapons in the Ailoklaran area. Ailoklaran and Hudilaran have been areas with quite heavy gang fighting for a number of weeks. Total deaths for January were six.
The international media have pretty much ignored the daily fighting, and it was almost a surprise to see this operation get into the foreign press. Who knows how successful it will be, particularly when one of the 49 detainees is the leader of the PSHT (Setia Hati) gang.
I heard that one result of detaining these people was the burning of some of the detainees houses by the other gang (I guess).
It was obvious something special was going on with helicopters circling the area for some time. Until the operation, Dr.Dan’s Bairo Pite clinic was subjected to nightly rock assaults. This is believed to be directed at some of the patients rather than the clinic itself. Yesterday was rather quiet.
The day after the operation (I must find out the code name used), I saw a fleet of trucks (Ministry of Labour and Community Re-insertion and IOM) and UNPol vehicles heading out east. As I was returning to Dili at the time, it was easy to count them. But they were on their way somewhere east of Metinaro and the trucks contained a lot of construction steel and wood beams, presumably for housing construction. There were quite a few UNPol vehicles and maybe some IDPs (refugees). Don’t know really.
I have updated my Google Earth information to include the UN security hotspot areas as of 31 Jan 2007. Many are the same as 3 months ago, but some of the eastern parts that were hot are no longer – in particular the Santa Ana area, Dili National Hospital and Becora. But the Hudilaran, Ailoklaran and Bairo Pite areas have been added and are now the current hotspots. I was a bit surprised that the Delta area, just east of the Comorro River and south of the Leader supermarket has not been included. And if the Bairo Pite clinic is getting stoned every night, why is it not included.
For my latest Google Earth file, go here.
The trucks leaving town is now explained courtesy of the UN security update which says :
UNPOL helped the staff of the Ministry of Labour during the physical exercise of assisting IDP families to relocate to the Districts. The support of the Traffic Unit was greatly appreciated and their management of the traffic to and from the Ministry, and in the area around the Ministry was very important to facilitate a safe relocation of people to the Districts.
The number of families who were relocated with assistance from UNPOL and PNTL officers are as follows:
Viqueque 14
Maliana 1
Suai 1
Same 1
Ermera 2
Manatuto 3
Lautem 11
Lospalos 1
Baucau 21
During the week, at least 65 families moved to the districts and another 38 families were scheduled to return to their homes in the Hali Dolar aldeia from a Hera IDP site.