The money will be used to provide the East Timorese with food and shelter, education and medical care over the next nine months.

The UN said that the scope of devastation in the territory was extraordinary, with 75% of its people displaced and 70% of the buildings destroyed in looting and attacks set off by the 30 August independence referendum.

Enclave 'a wasteland'

The BBC's Jill McGivering: "Refugees describe widespread violence here"

Fresh details have emerged of the devastation carried out by pro-Indonesian militias in the enclave of Oekussi, the last part of the territory secured by the international peacekeepers.

The BBC's Jill McGivering, who was among the first group of journalists to visit the enclave, said the area looked like a wasteland from the air and most of the population had vanished.

Many buildings had been destroyed and there was no evidence of people's livestock.

Some 3,000 refugees have now returned and gathered at a church, which appears to be the only building left intact by rampaging pro-Jakarta militias.

The enclave is thought to have had a population of around 50,000 prior to the August referendum.

Across East Timor, refugees are returning to a shattered land

The refugees said militias had sent people to camps, where they were raped and killed.

A list was posted in the church with the names of 34 people reported slain, with notes from witnesses describing how they were killed - "a machete wound, a gunshot" - and the date they died.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed.

The Australian-led peacekeeping force, Interfet, has only established a small presence in Oekussi since coming ashore on Friday.

Interfet says it arrested 40 suspected militia members - some armed with pipe guns and knives - on the first day of its deployment.