Guinea despite

Editorial

As nearly a quar ter of the popu lation of Papua New Guinea

suffers in varying degrees

from the ravages of the worst drought in memory, the world and the region has rushed in with aid.

Australia, New Zealand and Fiji are the front runners.

But it has been evident, once again, that aid delivery is no simple task - especially in times of crisis.

Food shipments have been mobbed. Aid personnel - even the military - have felt threatened as desperate villagers descended on food supplies.

That the scope of the crisis caught PNG and the rest of the region off guard, is undeniable.

But who could possibly have planned for such a tragedy at a time of year when the rain is normally so reliable?

Of course, it’s the El Nino effect - the Pacific Ocean warming phenomenon that has delivered such catastrophic consequences.

Nothing, it seems, can be done to prevent - or even predict - its ravages.

Countries like PNG with their rugged terrain and consequent ly poor infrastructure are especially vulnerable.

If PNG possessed good roads from Port Moresby and coastal centres into the interior, the delivery of aid would be so much easier.

Aid reaches Papua New Guinea despite difficulties

As it is, almost every thing has to go by air and much of that by helicopter. It’s expen sive and it’s slow. But at least it’s being done.

No praise is too high for the people in the air and on the ground who

are doing their utmost to ensure that all the hungry receive a fair share of what’s available.

It’s often not a popular task as desperate people adopt desper ate measures but the aid teams have performed well under the most difficult of circumstances.

But it’s clearly not over. With drought comes disease and it’s entirely possible that we have not seen the worst of this tragedy that is likely, according to reliable estimates, to affect up to a mil lion people on the PNG side of the island alone.

What’s likely to be happening across the border in Irian Jaya is too terrible to contemplate as Indonesia struggles with its cur rency and economic crises.

As always, on both sides of the border, the very young and the very old are among the first to suffer.

Reliable figures are hard to come by but there will already have been deaths from the drought and there are probably many more to come. That’s why it is so vital for the aid effort to con tinue. PNG’s neighbours have reacted positively thus far. The effort has to be maintained. ■