Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change warns “there’s going to be a lot of hardship” for people waiting for their crops to grow back as dry rations are distributed to communities.

Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the main food push started in the middle of last week, with only a small amount of supplies being handed out in the immediate aftermath of the severe back-to-back cyclones.

He said there had been logistical issues in getting the food distributed, but dry rations should reach everyone in the two worst affected provinces, Shefa and Tafea, by the end of this week.

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“It’s not really ideal but it’s still within the timeframe we’ve set which is three weeks from the cyclone and those three weeks end about now,” Regenvanu said.

“People are frustrated, they’re waiting for food, some are waiting for shelter and supplies so they can rebuild.

“As with every disaster of this magnitude, there’s a lot of frustration with the ability of the government and other partners to respond in a timely manner, but that’s just issues of capacity within the government and our donor partners.”

Regenvanu said gardens, which were the main source of food for people, had been damaged.

“There’s going to be a lot of hardship while we wait for the gardens to regenerate,” he said.

“The food cluster is also giving out lots of seeds and gardening tools to assist people to start planting which should have started happening immediately after the cyclone.”

Rivers, streams polluted
Soneel Ram from Vanuatu Red Cross said the two most urgent needs were access to shelter and clean drinking water.

“Most of the houses have been damaged and some have been completely destroyed by the strong winds,” Ram said.

“Some have been shoved out to sea as a result of floods.

“Most of the villages rely on rivers and streams as the source of their drinking water; because of the cyclones the debris has actually polluted these water sources.”

He said Vanuatu Red Cross handed out jerry cans for people to store water. The organisation has also raised awareness for safe hygiene practices like boiling water before drinking.

Ram said the subsistence farmers he spoke with were down to their last week or two of food supplies.

Minister Regenvanu said money would be given out alongside food so households could purchase whatever they needed.

Non-government organisations were also providing additional relief, he said.

“So we hope that that will mean nobody’s terribly negatively affected by being hungry.”

Assessment difficult
Regenvanu said the assessment of the damage was quite difficult to do because a lot of communication systems were knocked out.

However, last week most of the assessments had returned.

Regenvanu said not all communication had been restored around the country.

He estimated phone connection was down from a baseline of about 60 to 70 percent to around 50 percent around the country.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealand aid worker in Kyiv says the ReliefAid group he leads was one of the first to provide food in the suburb of Bucha — northwest of Kyiv — where Russian troops are alleged to have executed 150 civilians.

New Zealand donations in the Ukraine War have so far helped the aid group deliver more than six tonnes of food to survivors, and take medical supplies to hospitals around Kyiv.

ReliefAid executive director Mike Seawright arrived in Kyiv this weekend after driving in from the western side of Ukraine — “down some roads that have seen a lot of intense fighting, burnt out buildings, warehouses completely flattened, family homes destroyed and lots of military hardware burnt out.

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“It was an interesting if not somewhat chilling drive.”

He has been in the country for a month after crossing the border on foot.

In Kyiv, “the fighting may have stopped … but the destruction of family homes is still there. People are living in the rubble of what was their normal lives with nothing to their name, faced with cold, harsh conditions, with little or no food. So humanitarian support such as we are providing … is essential.”

But while fighting there may have stopped, missiles were still “raining down” on the city, making it unsafe.

Management on the fly
Seawright said that with many trucks bringing aid into the country — and at least one plane of medical supplies — a lot of organisation was involved.

“It also takes a lot of management on the fly. So we’ve predefined plans … but of course what happens on the day is entirely dependent on checkpoints we can’t control, road conditions on roads that have been severely damaged … and a security situation that is extremely volatile. So this is our number eight wire – managing all of this.”

His team also wants to deliver aid to people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“We are standing by to get in there as soon as conditions allow. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of humanitarian action. ReliefAid is a warzone specialist humanitarian aid organisation but I have to say, even we can’t get access to Mariupol at the moment.”

As soon as an access corridor was established, they would be in, Seawright said.

Being on the ground was key to working effectively, he said.

A lot of hard work
“It takes a lot of hard working, a lot of networking, a lot of managing logistics, but I’m proud to say we’ve got an incredible team here in Ukraine allowing us to do that.

“The most important thing you need to do when engaging with a new environment is see what is happening on the ground. We’ve got to know who we are supporting. We have got to make sure we know what their needs are and therefore we need to make sure the support that we receive by generous kiwis in New Zealand and across the world is going to the right place.

“You can’t do this from a desk in New Zealand, you can’t do this by reading a report. You have to get on the ground and see it yourself.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As news coverage of the Hunga volcano eruption and tsunami that hit Tonga starts to fade, the United Nations Coordination Specialist in the country has a message to the outside world:

Tonga’s people are going to need sustained support responding to a disaster of this scale.

“The resources that we have on the ground are not enough”, Sione Hufanga said in an interview with UN News.

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“We ought to always look at the situation and ask, have we done enough, for this very small country, isolated in the Pacific islands?”

The underwater volcano eruption of a week ago, is believed to be the largest volcanic event to happen for 30 years.

The huge, 20 km high mushroom cloud of smoke and ash, and the tsunami that followed, affected 84,000 people, more than 80 percent of the population of the South Pacific country.

In the last few days, the kingdom has started receiving ships with humanitarian aid, and, with the runway now cleared of thick volcanic ash, the international airport is now open to flights with assistance.

‘Overwhelmed with the magnitude’
Despite the positive signs of recovery, Hufanga warned that “the people of Tonga are still overwhelmed with the magnitude of the disaster”.

Only three people — so far — have lost their lives, but the specialist believes that number provides a somewhat misleading sense of security.

“Sometimes you can feel that it’s not as bad as it is, based on the fatalities, but that number represents the resilience of the Tongan community in such a disaster,” he said.

Speaking by cellphone, with most communications with the outside world still suspended, he explained that “most of the focus now is to serve the people who have been severely affected and need help with their essential needs in the next few days”.

The UN is working with the government to finalise a needs assessment, that should be completed next week and will guide the immediate response and relief efforts.

“Water, sanitation, hygiene, schools, are among the things that will allow life to return to normal as soon as possible, but there is still a lot of ash that needs to be removed from those premises,” Hufanga said.

UN agencies are in the field distributing dignity kits to the most affected people, food support, and trying to restart the agricultural sector.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is working with the Minister of Health providing medical teams to Ha’apai, one of the most affected islands, and other agencies, like the World Food Programme (WFP), are cooperating to help restore communication services.

Long-term impacts
For the UN specialist, the complete magnitude of the problems is still unknown. He points to damages to the agricultural sector or the marine resources as examples.

Around 60 to 70 percent of livestock-rearing households have seen their animals perish, grazing land damaged, or water supplies contaminated.

And, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the agricultural sector represents over 65 percent of the country exports.

Fisheries have been significantly affected as well. The government has advised against fishing amid the ongoing contamination — or consuming fish.

“These are mid to long-term impacts that are yet to be understood,” Hufanga said.

Because of this, the specialist believes Tongans might have to rely on imported food for some time, something they have “never experienced before”.

“Tonga never expected that such a disaster could put us in this very, very difficult situation”, he says.

It takes up to 6 km for women from Milampipi and Kaisia villages in the mountainous hinterlands of Papua New Guinea’s Nabak local government in Nawaeb district, Morobe province, to reach the nearest roads by foot.

For more than 40 years they have had to do this before they could catch a vehicle to sell their garden produce in the markets in Lae city 21km away.

For the women — especially mothers — the struggle is real. They have walked for six to seven hours, climbing steep rugged mountains, crossing dangerous fast flowing rivers with heavy loads of vegetables, bananas, taro and sweet potatoes to reach Situm or Hobu to get on a PMV (public motor vehicle).

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November 7, 2021, is a day the villagers will never forget –– on that day, the first PMV truck nicknamed “Dignity” drove into the village for the first time to bring the mothers and their produce to markets.

That was made possible after the national government, through the Department of National Planning and Monitoring, with Nawaeb and Finschhafen districts allocating funds, initiated the construction of the Nawaeb-Finschhafen Highway this year.

The road will link rural villages in the two districts to the provincial capital, also enabling some of the best organic coffee to reach market.

One mother, Wangeng Akundi, was emotional and shedding tears of joy when she put her bilums (string bags) packed with garden foods and sako (vegetable) on the truck for the first time.

Walking for years with heavy loads
She says that for years, they had walked long distances with their heavy loads.

“Sometimes we also carry our babies on top of the loads to seek medical services in Situm or Lae,” she adds.

“We are thankful to Anutu (God) for the road access that has reached us and now we will just get on a PMV and travel to Lae for our marketing.”

John Kamsi, a person living with a disability, says it takes him longer to reach the main roads to seek medical services.

“I am very happy with the new road,” he said.

A mother of one, Sandra Yaling, says: “We’re very happy with the new road, because some of us put our lives and the lives of our children at risk many times just to get to the nearest road.

“The main things that we need are cooking oil, soap and salt.”

Real struggles for food
PMV owner Eric Piving, whose vehicle was the first to bring the women and children with their produce to Bumayong and Igam markets, says many times he felt sorry for the mothers.

They had to walk long distances with their foodstuffs to sell and meet their basic household needs.

“We’ve dreamed for a road into the villages and now it has happened,” he says.

He said many times people see them selling their produce at the markets, without knowing the real struggles they have to go through to bring those food items to the market.

“Since first the Lutheran missionaries came to Finschhafen and took the same route towards Nawaeb, then to parts of Morobe — the new highway should be named Miti Highway’, which means ‘God’s Word highway’),” Piving says.

“We thank the government and our local MPs for their support.”

Nawaeb MP Kennedy Wenge told the PNG Post-Courier that the District Development Authority allocated K100,000 (NZ$43,000) each year to support the new stretch of road from Hobu to Momolili.

K280 million allocated for road
“The Department of National Planning and Monitoring allocated K280 million (NZ$120 million) in 2020 and has continued funding the road that will connect Lae-Nawaeb and Finschhafen,” he says.

“I want our people to appreciate what the districts and the national government have committed and support the work. The Nawaeb to Kabwum road will also take shape once K100 million (NZ$43 million) funding is made available.”

Wenge says the villages also produce high tonnes of coffee and the road will assist them greatly in terms of accessing markets.

More than 2000 people from villages in Nawaeb will benefit from the road. Apart from road Wenge, says he is also ensuring maintenance on rural airstrips so people can transport their coffee and garden produce to the markets in Lae.

That is to support villagers gaining some income.

Republished with permission from the PNG Post-Courier.