DILI (TOP) – The flood disaster that resulted in thousands of people becoming refugees in Dili has yet to be resolved, and now a new problem has emerged regarding the Covid-19 case in Timor-Leste.
The former Prime Minister of Timor-Leste Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão from Monday 12 April 2021 to Tuesday 13 Abril has shown his dissatisfaction with the government's performance on how to deal with Covid-19.
For two days in a row, Xanana has carried a coffin in a peaceful protest against the government in an isolation room at the Vera Cruz health center.
Xanana's peaceful protest started with Armindo Borges (47), who died last week of hemorrhagic stroke, according to statements from the victim's family. But the government denied this statement by explaining to the public that Borges died of Covid-19.
Lourdes de Jesus, the biological daughter of the late Borges, explains the chronology of her father's death that, on a Sunday at around 6 p.m., her father suddenly had a stroke which made his face swollen, and then they went to call an ambulance at the Komoro’s health center to take him to the national hospital in Bidau, Toko Baru, Dili.
They arrived at the emergency room of the national hospital at 7 pm, and at that time the medics immediately carried out a swab test, which only took 15 minutes, the results showed that the late Borges had Covid-19. Then the doctors no longer treated the hemorrhagic stroke, but immediately evacuated Borges to an isolation room at the Vera Cruz health center, and finally he died before arriving in Vera Cruz.
With this sad situation, Lourdes and her whole family rejected the results of the swab test because according to her, her father had suffered a stroke, not Covid-19.
“He got Covid-19 in just 15 minutes, and my father died right away, poor thing. Now his body is swollen in the isolation room, ” she explained to The Oe-Kusi Post (TOP) in Vera Cruz, Dili, Monday, April 12, 2021.
Previously, the government had decided on a place in Metinaro in the eastern part of Dili as a special cemetery for the victims of Covid-19, in which the government had buried a female victim a few weeks ago that drew criticism from various parties for the funeral process that was deemed inhuman and incompatible with existing customs.
And now the government is still trying hard to bury the late Armindo Borges again in the same cemetery, but it hasn’t done so due to rejection from his family member and Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão demanding to be taken to their home for the funeral ceremony accordance with their tradition.
Given no solution been taken so far, and both parties maintain their position Xanana and the victims' families just slept on the street of Vera Cruz, and on Tuesday 13 Abril at 3 am, in the morning and they were awaken by a Covid-19 team trying to take the body from the isolation area, an attempt that was blocked by Xanana.
Xanana and the victims' families also received supports from hundreds of people in Dili as they continue criticizing the government not to politicize the Covid-19 for their own interest.
When Xanana arrived in Vera Cruz, the Minister of Health, Odete Maria Freitas Belo also immediately walked into the isolation area where she met and talk with Xanana.
And on Tuesday 13 Abril at 8:30 in the morning, F-FDTL's top military commander, Lere Anan Timur also met with Xanana and tried to persuade him that the government could retrieve this body for burial, but Xanana continue maintain his position that the government should hand over this body to the family for burial because his death was not due to Covid-19, but because of a stroke. And until now there is no solution about this case either.
