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Indonesia told foreign aid workers on Tuesday that Palu, devastated by the disaster, did not need his help and had to return home, frustrating tsunami relief efforts that killed more than 2,000 people .
New rules banned them from searching for the dead in the hardest-hit areas of Palu, where thousands of people have gone missing since the September 28th incident, informed of the new rules forbidden to foreign teams in the field .
Indonesia initially refused international aid, but President Joko Widodo reluctantly agreed to allow foreign aid as soon as the situation became clearer on the island of Sulawesi.
Foreign aid has poured into the ravaged city of Palu, where authorities estimate that 5,000 people may be missing and that 200,000 survivors are in desperate need of food, water and other vital products.
On Tuesday, international search and rescue teams were barred from accessing the worst-hit areas of Palu, where thousands of people are reported to be buried under rubble.
Ahmed Bham, of the South African charity Gift of the Givers, has learned that new rules are preventing foreign search and rescue teams (USARs) from foreign countries from playing a role in recovering the dead.
They were told "all foreign USAR teams should return to their country, they do not need it in Indonesia," he said.
"We have experienced search and rescue teams in Indonesia with very specialized equipment, and I would like to use them," he told AFP in Palu.
The 27 members of their team arrived in Palu three days ago from Johannesburg, but days late prevented him from participating in the search for the dead.
"Many days have been lost (…) where we could have helped and used our expertise and skills," said Bham.
"There seemed to be – I would not say paperwork – but it was just like," you can not work here, you can not do that, you can not do that. " It's something we have not experienced in other major disasters like this one. "
– They can not work & # 39; –
The Indonesian Disaster Relief Agency issued a series of rules over the weekend, urging international staff to leave Palu and demanding that donations from abroad be channeled through local partners .
"The truth is that they issued a statement saying that foreign staff should be removed from his post," World Vision Australia spokesman Tim Costello told Australia's ABC broadcaster on Tuesday.
"It's very strange, because foreign journalists are free to walk around and report, which is very strange."
He said the help was reaching the survivors but "it's still too slow for us who are used to these crises".
Bham said most of the international teams he had seen in Palu were at the airport.
"They can not work, they are starting to return to their country," he said.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the agency responsible for the disasters, said that no foreign aid national had yet been asked to leave Palu.
"But in Lombok, there are many (asked to leave)," he told reporters on Tuesday. A series of earthquakes in Lombok, east of Indonesia, during the summer, killed more than 550 people, causing significant humanitarian aid.
"The president said we no longer needed foreign aid, but they kept coming."
Obtaining vital supplies in the affected areas proved extremely difficult, as its small airport was limited by flights to Palu, forcing aid workers to cope with arduous journeys by land.
More than 70,000 people have been displaced since the magnitude 7.5 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami in Palu.
