I just returned from a two day assessment trip, two of us from FHI and two from World Relief. You can see the pictures at my Picasa site. What a sad state, amid such beauty and grandeur... a village of 450 families finds themselves trapped between two armies. Grenades destroy homes, and the whole community flees. After suffering bullet wounds, fractures from falling buildings and cuts and bruises from their flight, they arrive at a displacement camp with insufficient resources to sustain them. Thousands of families huddled in tents on a lava field. No wonder, after less than a month, they return to their community, to find their livestock stolen, with not even a chicken remaining. Meanwhile, their own cattle are promenaded past them by the "new owners", eating their soon-to-fail corn and bean crops.
When I spoke to UN and other agency officials, they confirmed what I had seen, "It's a gap. We're focusing on the displaced, in the camps and in host families, and no one is assisting those brave enough to return home." Hopefully we can offer some aid. I'm busy working on aid proposals, but may be home soon.
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