Flood victims of the April 3 floods have expressed dissatisfaction with the repatriation package the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) has provided.
Chairman of Mbokonavera camp Charles Ketea told this paper the victims felt like they were being mistreated and neglected since day one.
“How could you expect someone losing all their belongings and home to rehabilitate when you will be repatriated with only two 20kg bag rice, 20 pieces of roofing iron and a plastic of mix goods? How are we going to build our homes when we have no money to build?” Ketea said.
Sixty families were said to have been repatriated yesterday evening after NDMO finalises their logistics to travel back to their home villages.
Out of 242 families sheltered at the FOPA village, 60 have raised their hands to go back home while the rest have decided to remain in town with families and relatives as the evacuation centres are closing down.
The victims complained that they have not receive some financial assistance to help them start off their rehabilitation.
“We will be repatriated empty handed. How can we get timber, nails, and other necessary materials or equipments to build our houses when we get home? This is not on because it seems like the millions of aid money coming into the country goes somewhere else and not used wisely. So now we fear what will happen next when these two bags of rice runs out,” Ketea said.
However the NDMO office said victims should accept what the government has done for them seeing this is the best the government can possibly do with the limited resources it has.
Chief operations officer George Baragamu said NDMO encourages people to be self resilient and assist the government to move on than to depend which will not help at all.
“The support the government gives is big and people should appreciate it and move on with life. We have a society of people who can be self resilient and that is what we also expect from people to do at least assist the government in whatever it gives to support our people. And by working together and supporting each other, everyone can be happy and rebuild their lives once more,” Baragamu said.
By Daniel Namosuaia
