Dear Editor – Amidst the local celebrations marking the work of RAMSI, three years on from the terrible floods in Honiara in April 2014 when 21 people from the Kao Valley community died as the Mataniko River burst its banks, the hundreds of people that were relocated to the eastern foothills of Honiara are still living in desperate social conditions.
Radio New Zealand International correspondent, Koroi Hawkins, has reported, “Some are still making do under the original tarpaulins, most now tattered and torn, which they received as part of emergency relief supplies immediately after the flood.”
The tight-knit April Valley community, as they now call themselves, are grateful for the land given to them by the government, but the community____s chairman Michael Fa____abona said promises of better housing, water and electricity hadn____t eventuated and it had been a struggle to rebuild their lives.
Mr Faabone told Koroi Hawkins, “One of the biggest problems was the lack of clean drinking water which had made some of the children really sick.”
“We just dug well water from the ground. It is not that clean but because we could not find anywhere else to get water we just use it. We cook with it, bathe and wash with it and drink it.”
Yours sincerely,
Frank Short
www.solomonislandsinfocus.com
