From Queens, an Acehnese Man Becomes a Lifeline to His Family

On Sunday the line was dead. On Monday the phone just rang. Eddy Suheri’s prayers were answered Tuesday in his Queens studio.His mother, who lives in the Indonesian province of Aceh, 150 miles from the epicenter of Sunday’s tsunami, picked up the phone.“Thank god, I can speak to you again,” Mr. Suheri said to her. “I didn’t think I would ever speak to you again.”Mr. Suheri, 29, of Woodside, is one of about 20 Acehnese living in the city. The news his parents had for him was bittersweet.In this smallest of New York communities, no one has been spared a loss. Yesterday, U.N. officials put the possible death toll for the province of Aceh, where entire villages have been submerged, near 80,000.Most members of Mr. Suheri’s immediate family – his parents, a younger brother and sister – were unhurt. The geography of their house, which is on a hill, saved them.His extended family, his many aunts and uncles, cousins, his grandmother, and possibly his older brother, who lives in Meulaboh, a town on the west coast that was especially ravaged, were probably dead, dragged into the sea by Sunday’s tsunami or drowned when the Aceh River swelled.Mr. Suheri’s relatives gave him more information, too, about the bloated bodies resurfacing along the coast and in the streets. After searching among the dead for relatives who were quickly becoming unrecognizable, Mr. Suheri’s mother and sister were sent home by aftershocks, and the fear of another tsunami has kept them there. They were running out of food and water, Mr. Suheri said.Then his sister asked him a telling question.“Is only Aceh affected?” Mr. Suheri, 29, recalled his sister asking.To a family decimated by the tsunami and cut off from the outside world, Mr. Suheri was a lifeline. Together they filled the information gap.“She was shocked to find out it was so big,” Mr. Suheri said.Mr. Suheri, a journalist who fled Aceh in 2001 after publishing an Acehnese newspaper critical of the Indonesian government’s rule there, spent the days immediately following the tsunami glued to the Web.“At first the only pictures were of Sri Lanka and India, not Aceh,” he said. “But I believe Aceh is the worst hit. Without any press on the ground there were no pictures and no news.”Since May 2003, the province has been under military law and foreign journalists have not been able to work freely, Mr. Suheri said. News has been slow to come from the region, though by yesterday a fuller evaluation of the damage became possible.Before the tsunami, the International Rescue Committee was one of only a handful of aid organizations working in Aceh. It had deployed a 20-member team to deal with 30,000 people who were displaced as a result of the secessionist movement and military conflict. Two members are still missing.“The more we learn, the more we discover how extensive the devastation has been,” the group’s emergency director, Gerald Martone, said. “It’s been a shock to hear that the wave washed six miles inland.”Acehnese rebels and the Indonesian military have honored a cease-fire, allowing the International Rescue Committee to dispatch a 26-person team to the province. Other aid is on its way.But as help arrives, news of where to go for assistance has not reached those most in need of it, Mr. Suheri’s relatives told him. Though the phones worked, electricity was out.So Mr. Suheri took matters into his own hands – or rather, fingertips. He seized information from news reports beginning to be broadcast by the first foreign journalists entering Aceh. He told his sister where to go for food, water, and oil – try military posts, he said – and reassured her that the tremors were unlikely to cause more flooding.The Indonesian government has been criticized for not responding quickly enough to the crisis in Aceh. Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has responded by taking personal control of the relief efforts, news services in the region reported.“For some, it’s too late to help,” Mr. Suheri said. “I feel very sad for my nation. Aceh is always suffering.”

From Queens, an Acehnese Man Becomes a Lifeline to His Family

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