18 Feb 2004

RAMSI head says 1300 displaced people now resettled on Guadalcanal's Weather Coast

4:12 pm on 18 February 2004

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands says 13-hundred displaced people have resettled on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal and more will follow.

The RAMSI head, Nick Warner, says national disaster officials have helped resettle the 13-hundred internally displaced people from camps in the capital, Honiara.

He says the former refugees, who fled violence prior to RAMSI's arrival, are now back in their villages and another 300 will follow at the end of the month.

Nick Warner says the Weather Coast, a hotspot during the tensions of the past several years, is an example of RAMSI's successes.

"The situation on the Weather Coast is to a very large extent returned to normal. There's still an underlying sense of tension but I think you'd expect that given the horrific events that have occurred on the Weather Coast over the last two, three and four years. So the Weather Coast is really coming along very well."

Nick Warner says Honiara is now safer than Melbourne or Sydney and normalcy has also returned to Malaita and other provinces of the Solomons.