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SEATTLE – World Vision is mobilizing staff and relief goods in northern Australia in preparing to return to East Timor with or shortly behind the first wave of United Nations peacekeeping troops. The agency, the last private relief group to leave Dili, will assist at least 25,000 people left homeless by violence over the past two weeks.

"Most of the returnees will be starting from scratch," said Al Dwyer, World Vision relief officer who left East Timor on September 7 with Nobel Prize Laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo. "They fled with nothing at all. Meanwhile, their homes have been burned, their crops destroyed."

Dwyer is in the northern Australian city of Darwin to oversee plans for World Vision's return. In addition to bringing blankets and other emergency goods for the displaced East Timorese, World Vision will have to provide supplies for its own employees. "Much of the city had been burned and destroyed before I left," said Dwyer. "We're expecting to find minimal facilities for our staff when we return." The agency will bring in tents, sleeping gear, lanterns, cooking equipment and backpacks for its relief workers.

The most immediate need for the East Timorese will be for food, clothing, plastic sheeting and medical assistance. In addition, seeds and tools will be required for the upcoming planting season in November. Home reconstruction also will be a pressing need.

"We have made a commitment to the people of East Timor," said Dwyer. "World Vision will remain with them until life is normal again."

Meanwhile, in West Timor, World Vision is responsible for 5,000 East Timorese families who have fled to the town of Atambura. Water and sanitation are critical problems in this town, whose population has swollen in recent days from 12,000 to more than 74,000. World Vision has installed four water tanks at Atambura, and will bring in four more. In addition, the agency will dig as many as 15 wells.

"The refugees are just now beginning to exhaust the meager supplies they brought with them," reported Sanjay Sojwal, World Vision's Asia Communications officer on assignment in West Timor largest city, Kupang. World Vision staff are distributing family kits, each containing a plastic bucket and cooking pot, two sarongs, soap and five sets of plates, spoons and cups. In addition, World Vision will transport food to Atambura, a 5-hour drive from Kupang.

Some of the refugees’ needs will take more time to heal. "The East Timorese are angry, hurt and afraid," said Sojwal. "At night, refugees stand in long lines waiting to spend their last few coins at phone booths in a vain attempt to make contact with relatives left behind." Some telephone lines to East Timor have been cut. Refugees have set up radio networks to help the displaced locate missing relatives.

World Vision has worked in Timor since 1975. Since June, World Vision has provided food and other relief supplies to more than 1,600 families in East Timor. Its final two distributions were at Bishop Carlos Belos’ residence and the United Nations compound.

World Vision is seeking some $600,000 in the United States to support a worldwide effort of well over $1 million in aid to East Timor. Donations to World Vision's East Timor relief efforts can be made by calling toll-free 1-888-56CHILD (1-888-562-4453)