Tones of relief supplies have been shipped out to the provinces in the last two days.
The National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) has confirmed that relief supplies to Malaita, Isabel, Western and Choiseul provinces have now been shipped.
Relief supplies for Isabel, Western and Choiseul provinces left on Sunday onboard MV Otega and supplies for Malaita left yesterday evening onboard MV Arnavon.
The NDMO office said the trip down west will take ten days to go around distributing all the supplies to the affected areas.
MV Otega is expected to stop over at Buala to drop off shelter kits for affected families who lost their homes during the April disaster before heading down Choiseul, then to Shortlands and back through Western province.
The trip to Malaita is expected to take eight days travelling around the island starting east.
The Solomon Star is aware the boat that left last night to Malaita also transported flood victims in Honiara who have decided to be repatriated back to their home villages.
Chief operations officer George Baragamu said the repatriation exercise is getting on well and the repatriation of those to Malaita has cut the numbers in the evacuation centres significantly.
Baragamu said the remaining ones will be dealt with today and the coming days.
“These are the victims who decided to stay with their families and relatives in and around Honiara and those who come from neighbouring islands.
“We expect that all centres will close down after this repatriation exercise which NDMO hopes will happen soon. Because people must understand that these centres are only for temporary settlement and not for a long period of time.
Therefore these centres must close and allow people to go back home and start rehabilitating and rebuild their lives with the little support the government can manage to give,” Mr Baragamu concluded.
BY DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
