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Anak Dalam tribe pleads for healthcare facility
Representatives of the Anak Dalam nomadic tribe denied on Sunday reports that 11 members of the tribe in Bukit Duabelas National Park (TNBD) in Jambi had died of starvation, saying the deaths were due to a lack of healthcare facilities
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epresentatives of the Anak Dalam nomadic tribe denied on Sunday reports that 11 members of the tribe in Bukit Duabelas National Park (TNBD) in Jambi had died of starvation, saying the deaths were due to a lack of healthcare facilities.
Reports about the deaths of the 11 Anak Dalam tribe members within two months due to lack of food after the places they inhabited were converted into productive forests made headlines recently and drove Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa to visit the tribe, which is also known as Orang Rimba (People of the Forest).
Tumenggung (group leader) Jelitai admitted the news that the 11 people had died of starvation had tarnished his tribe.
Jelitai said they died in the last two months due to sickness and because "they could not make it to [the nearest] healthcare center".
He said his fellow people needed to walk for a day to reach a community health center (Puskesmas) in the nearest village, as medics never visited their nomadic places of residence.
Jelitai hoped the government would soon build healthcare facilities nearby the areas in which the tribe lived.
Metak, a member of the tribe from the group of Tumenggung Girang, said that two of his fellow people, a child and a teenager, died because of measles.
NGO Perkumpulan Hijau's spokesman Willy Azan concurred that those who passed away mostly lived in nearby plantation areas.
"Their water has been contaminated by palm-oil industrial waste," he said.
Willy urged the government to address the problem. "The government should assure their basic needs. As a marginal group, Orang Rimba have the same rights as their fellow Indonesian citizens," he said.
In terms of discourse concerning the establishment of a cultural village settlement for the nomadic tribe, Willy said the government should take into consideration a scheme that would take the Anak Dalam tribe back into the forest, "so that they live according to their own local wisdom".
Minister Khofifah has stressed the need for the nomadic tribe to embrace settlement to make it easier for them to access social welfare programs. (+++++)(++++)
