25 Jun 2003

Solomons disaster officials to help weather coast

10:57 am on 25 June 2003

Solomon Islands National Disaster Office hopes to send a team later this week to check on the welfare of hundreds of displaced people on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal.

There are estimates that 15-hundred villagers have now been displaced by the unrest there after increasing attacks by rebel leader, Harold Keke, and his supporters.

Nearly a thousand people are being cared for in makeshift shelters near Honiara, after many had spent three days trekking to escape Keke.

The director of the national disaster office, Loti Yates, says about five hundred have also established a temporary camp in a safe area of the Weather Coast.

He says the villagers are fending for themselves.

"We are quite concerned about to get across to them. We do not know what the situation is and we are relying on informations that come in. We are looking at how we can get people to go across there. Probably on Thursday, we may come up with a more concrete plan."