Timor-Leste comes of age, but so much remains to be done catholicleader.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from catholicleader.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BANGKOK
Malnutrition, COVID-19, and food affordability are emerging as growing worries as Timor-Leste digs out from its worst flooding in decades.
Days of heavy rain triggered severe floods and landslides that swept through parts of the Pacific nation in early April. As relief operations ramp up, aid agencies say cases of diarrhoea are appearing in evacuation centres.
“There is an immediate need to establish a referral system for severe [and] critical cases of malnutrition,” UN agencies said in a 16 April report.
It took nearly a week for significant donor funding to kick in after the country’s most severe floods in 40 years. Heavy rains, worsened by a tropical cyclone that also damaged parts of eastern Indonesia and Western Australia, caused a sudden deluge concentrated in the capital, Dili. At least 45 people died.