17 Apr 2014

Voluntary repatriation set to start for Solomons flood victims

3:20 pm on 17 April 2014

The NGO World Vision is preparing to repatriate some flood victims in Solomon Islands who say they want to return to their homes.

World Visions's Country Director, Andrew Catford, says repatriation is one of the mandates of the Solomon Islands government, however they need proof that people have somewhere safe to return to.

"You know making sure that where they are going back to is safe and is the right place to go back to so there's certainly some things to consider in terms of you know have the got water supply where they are going back to and are they going back to areas that are still flood prone so sort of working out some of those things because there's still about 9,000 people in the camps."

About half of the evacuation centres in Honiara are in schools and relief agencies are under pressure to relocate flood victims so classes can resume next week.