Children are packed into a US C-17 aircraft for an evacuation at the airport in Tacloban, Philippines, Monday, Nov. 18, 2013. Many children from Tacloban have been placed in government care after losing parents to Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” said Liliosa Baltazar, director of the city’s social welfare department. AP PHOTO/WALLY SANTANA
TACLOBAN CITY—Since her mother, father and three siblings were swept away by a tsunami-like wave that engulfed this major city on island of Leyte, Nica Cabutin has been learning to live as an orphan, one of thousands created by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”).
Nica was found clutching wreckage after Yolanda, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, whipped up a huge surge that brought the ocean ashore, leaving the city in ruins and thousands of people dead.
Nica’s house and her entire family were carried away by the sea, said Carmela Bastes, director of the Shelter for Abused Women and Children, a refuge for rape victims and those afflicted by violence, where the orphan now lives.
The young girl is shy about her lopsided hair, which was cut short so the two large gashes on the side of her head could be treated.
“She tells us she’s in first grade and we also estimate she’s 8 years old,” said Bastes, whose staff tracked the girl’s family to what had been the Alimasag neighborhood of the devastated city.
Survivors there told officials that nothing had been seen of Nica’s parents and her three siblings since Yolanda struck on Nov. 8. Nica’s kin are presumed among the more than 4,400 people whom the United Nations says have died, while Philippine authorities put the toll at just under 4,000.
Nica was one of the first children from Tacloban to be placed in government care after losing parents to the typhoon, said Liliosa Baltazar, director of the city’s social welfare department.
But, Baltazar added, Nica is not expected to be the last. “We can’t say at this point how many there will be. We expect the local officials of the (Tacloban) districts will turn over orphaned children to us. Right now they are attending to the needs of their own families,” she said.
3M kids displaced
April Sumaylo from Save the Children in the Philippines said the charity estimated around 3 million children had been affected in some way by the typhoon.
“We have talked to children who have lost their parents,” Sumaylo said. “We have seen some children who said they are the ones scavenging for food and water. It’s obviously very distressing for them.”
Nica lives on the ground floor of the women’s shelter. Its roof was blown off by the supertyphoon and, as is the case in much of Tacloban, there is no power or water.
Under normal circumstances, she might have been placed in one of the city’s two main orphanages, one run by Catholic nuns and the other by nongovernmental group SOS.
But these orphanages were also badly damaged by the storm surges and ferocious winds that tore through central Philippines. Both shelters had to be evacuated.
Bearing up well
When Nica first arrived at the Shelter for Abused Women and Children she would cry all the time, Bastes said, but now she is more used to being there and plays with the other children.
Despite all she has gone through, Nica is bearing up well, Bastes said, perhaps too young to understand the magnitude of the horror that has befallen her.
“We do not know if this will remain the case,” she added.
Once the city’s welfare services get up and running again, Nica and other children like her will be handed over to officials and eventually put up for adoption.
“We have to place them with a family,” Bastes said. “They can’t be in this institution forever.”