Call for more supplies in Aceh

Supply trucks are now travelling in convoy for safety reasons

The International Red Cross has said it urgently needs more supplies in the Indonesian province of Aceh, as the military offensive there enters its second week.

The aid agency says it does not have enough equipment to carry out its work effectively, with some volunteers having to handle days-old corpses without protective clothing.

Human rights organisations have also expressed concern about the reported killings of civilians since the government began its offensive last Monday against separatist rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (Gam).

Amnesty International said the week-old campaign had led to grave human rights abuses, including the killing of children.

Meanwhile, Indonesian security forces are now accompanying supply lorries travelling on Aceh's main roads, after a series of attacks on drivers.

Vehicles have recently been ambushed and set on fire, and driving in convoy is the only safe way to travel, says the BBC's correspondent in Aceh, Rachel Harvey.

Aid convoy

Since the military offensive began, the Acehnese people have complained of a lack of essential items.

In pictures: war-torn Aceh

Food prices have risen sharply due to attacks on lorries plying the main supply routes in and out of the province.

But on Monday, a convoy heavily guarded by Indonesian troops left the provincial capital Banda Aceh to bring in supplies from the neighbouring province of Medan.

Several minibuses carrying scores of people trying to flee the capital were also in the convoy.

The Indonesian authorities said the disruption of transport and food supplies was the result of rebel attacks on major transport routes.

"These shortages simply cannot be allowed to continue," said Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh.

Rebel representatives deny they are to blame for the food shortages and truck attacks.

Both sides also disagree on the casualty figures in the week-old campaign.

The military says it has killed 68 rebels, while only two government soldiers and five civilians have been killed. But rebel sources say scores of civilians and hundreds of government soldiers have died so far.

Neither account has been independently verified.

Supply shortage

The Red Cross - whose principle function is to remove dead bodies from the battlefield and deliver them to hospitals - says it only has eight ambulances to cover the entire province.

The head of the Red Cross in Aceh, Sanusi Maha, told the BBC that some volunteers had been using bicycle rickshaws to transport corpses, while others were working without protective gloves or masks.

At the morgue in Banda Aceh's main hospital, officials said they were receiving an average of three bodies a day, mostly young men with gunshot wounds.

In the areas around Lhokseumawe, where the Indonesian military has been conducting operations in local villages, the figure is reported to be nearer six per day.

As the Indonesian security forces step up their military campaign, the death toll will almost certainly rise, our correspondent says.

Reports emerging from the field suggest the level of force being used in some cases amounts to serious abuse.

Journalists have seen the bodies of men who have been shot in the head at close range, our correspondent says.

Relatives say Indonesian soldiers were responsible.

The Indonesian security forces dismiss the reports as propaganda, but say they will investigate the claims.

Amnesty International said it was gravely concerned that the martial law imposed last week, at the beginning of the crackdown, would increase the chances of human rights abuses.

Amnesty laid the blame on both the government and the rebels, urging both sides to make the protection of civilians a priority.