Iwan Setiawan still vividly remembers the fateful day 12 years ago when a huge blast threw him and his pregnant wife Halila off his motorbike onto the busy street across the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, when on their way to a maternity clinic for a routine checkup.

“I still tremble whenever I pass that street,” says Iwan, 41, at his modest computer repair shop in Depok, West Java. That day, only a single PC and a dusty fan sat on a small table. He and his assistants waited for customers on the floor of their 3-by-5-meter kiosk.

Iwan recalls wiping blood oozing from his right eye as he regained consciousness. Seeing her husband’s injuries, Halila – then 23 years old – grabbed the motorbike and rushed him to the MNC Hospital nearby but, thinking she would not be able to afford the costs, she suddenly changed her mind and took him to another hospital she thought might be more affordable.

There, too, she hit another snag. Iwan did not receive immediate treatment because the hospital demanded to know who would guarantee his medical costs. Fortunately, after an argument, he was taken into the emergency room. He was told shrapnel from the explosion had pierced his eye.

As for Halila, who seemed fine and was busy looking after her husband, was later diagnosed in another hospital to have fractured her spine. She delivered a baby boy prematurely also that same day. She succumbed to a nervous breakdown from the spinal injury and died in 2005. “She passed away while I was still struggling with blindness and joblessness,” says Iwan who raises two children.

Iwan considers himself lucky as help eventually came – from the Australian embassy. The Australian government settled all his and his wife’s medical bills. Not only that, he also received an artificial eye and
Rp 10 million in cash to start a business after his job contract with a company ended during that difficult period.

He cannot hide his anger for the Indonesian government not offering him any assistance. At the height of his suffering, he says, he wished about dying as a martyr after blowing up a government building, in order to attract the world’s attention.

“They should have paid more attention to victims like me than to terror convicts and their families,” he says. “I lost almost everything in the tragedy. I wished I had died then. It’s hard to start life all over again.”

Antara/Muhammad Adimaja

Until the embassy bombing, Iwan says, he was a humorous person who would take life easy. Today, he often complains of dizziness and his left eye cannot see clearly. “Sometimes, I can’t see anything. But, looking back, I should be grateful that I only lost one eye.”

As time goes by, Iwan — who has remarried — is becoming more resigned to his destiny, knowing that nobody else can raise his two children.

The embassy bombing killed 14 people and injured 150 people, mostly passersby like Iwan and Halila. Other survivors received similar treatment from the state – denied compensation, proper medical care and psychiatric counseling to help them overcome trauma.

Sucipto Hari Wibowo, another passerby injured in the Australian embassy bombing, since has become an activist coordinating the organization, Yayasan Penyintas or Indonesian Survivors Foundation, for assisting terror attack survivors.

Still suffering trauma from the incident, Sucipto says the number of fatalities from the attack is in fact higher than the reported 14 because more victims have died in the subsequent years from nerve injuries like that suffered by Halila.

Like Iwan, Sucipto was riding his motorcycle when the blast occurred. Although sustaining serious head injuries, he managed to ride back home and get medical help. He relives the horror every time he passes that street, but the feeling of thankfulness from escaping death has turned his life around.

“Now I am more sensitive and better empathize [with people]. Maybe it is God’s way of telling me I should be helping others,” he says.
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Bomb attacks in Indonesia (2000- 2016)

* Aug. 1, 2000. Philippine Embassy bombing in Jakarta; two people dead, 21 injured.

* Sept. 13, 2000. Indonesian Stock Exchange in Jakarta; ten people dead, 90 injured.

* Dec. 24, 2000. Several bombings in one night in 11 different churches in cities across the country on Christmas Eve; 19 people dead, 100 injured.

* Oct. 12, 2002. Bali bombing I; at least 202 people dead, 300 injured.

* Aug. 5, 2003. JW Marriott bombing I; 16 people dead, 134 injured.

* Sept. 9, 2004. Kuningan bombing outside Australian Embassy; 14 people dead, 103 injured.

* Nov. 13, 2004. Poso bombing in Central Sulawesi; six people dead, three people injured.

* May 28, 2005. Tentena bombing in Central Sulawesi; 20 people dead, more than 40 injured.

* Oct. 1, 2005. Bali bombing II; 23 people dead, 196 injured.

* Dec. 31, 2005. Palu bombing; eight people dead, 53 people injured.

* July 17, 2008. JW Marriott bombing II; 21 people dead, 42 people injured.

* April 15, 2011. Suicide bombing in Cirebon Mosque in West Java; one dead, 28 injured.

* Sept. 25, 2011. Suicide bombing at a church in Surakarta, Central Java; one dead, 14 injured.

* Jan. 14, 2016. Thamrin bombing in Jakarta; eight people dead, 24 injured.

Source: The Jakarta Post