UN Refugee Agency to Return to Aceh

The UN's refugee agency is to resume humanitarian work in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh three months after it was expelled for allegedly exceeding its mandate.

However, the government's Aceh reconstruction agency told the Guardian yesterday that the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) would have a less autonomous role than previously.

"They will be working on a humanitarian mandate and not on their previous one," a spokesman said, without elaborating on what the previous one had been. "They will be reporting to the [agency]."

Further details would be announced by the agency's head, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.

It is unlikely UNHCR staff will be returning to offer shelter. In the three months after the tsunami, the UNHCR provided thousands of tents to the newly homeless.

Robert Ashe, its regional director, confirmed that it would be returning to Aceh.

Jakarta expelled the refugee agency at the end of the relief operation on March 26, although it had more than £12m of unspent donations. Officials claimed its presence was redundant because there were no refugees there, only internally displaced people.

The issue is sensitive in Indonesia, where the UNHCR is viewed as an agency that helps conflict victims.

Acehnese separatists have been waging a 29-year armed campaign. The government did not want the tsunami reconstruction to be linked to the conflict.