Indonesia reassures aid workers after gunfire

BANDA ACEH - Indonesia sought to reassure Western aid workers after a gunfire incident on Sunday in the major tsunami aid base of Banda Aceh raised safety fears.

"The security operation conducted by Indonesia's military and police will protect, secure the humanitarian efforts," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters to allay any concern among hundreds of Western relief workers pouring in.

Indonesia's military beefed up security in Banda Aceh amid confusion over who was behind the brief burst of shooting. Some officials blamed separatist rebels, while others said a disturbed government soldier fired the shots. No one was hurt.

The incident took place outside a deputy police chief's house and near the main UN aid office in the capital of Aceh province on the island of Sumatra where almost all of Indonesia's 104,000 deaths from the tsunami occurred.

The tsunami -- the most widespread natural disaster in living memory -- killed at least 156,000 people in 13 countries around the Indian Ocean two weeks ago, drawing emergency relief from throughout the world.

"You have to proceed with due caution. This has been and is a zone of conflict," Aly-Kahn Rajami, programme manager of CARE International, said after the shooting.

But the UN coordinator for Sumatra, Joel Boutroue, said: "We don't believe relief workers are targets. I don't see at this stage any hampering of our movement."

Indonesia's chief social welfare minister Alwi Shihab said the government was investigating. The military had ordered a high alert because of possible infiltration by people wary of the foreigners' presence, he said.

There have been reports of militant Islamic groups moving into the province aiming to counter any use of the disaster by Western aid groups to push a Christian agenda.

In Sri Lanka, where 30,000 people were killed, President Chandrika Kumaratunga told BBC television that with reconstruction starting on January 15, "we can certainly welcome tourists in three months, maximum four".

In New York, Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN Children's Fund, said health officials were acting against a possible outbreak of measles.

"There are some very small numbers of cases of measles that have been identified," Bellamy told CBS.

"We need also to be worried about things like cholera or diarrhoea and therefore children becoming dehydrated," she said. "The good news is to date there has not been any major outbreak of disease."

A huge undersea earthquake off the Aceh coast triggered the tsunami on December 26. The giant waves also killed 15,000 in India, more than 5000 in Thailand and others in the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and several East African nations.

- REUTERS