Atambua - Mr Simao Mowis led his family across the border from Indonesian West Timor to independent East Timor yesterday morning. He is not the first East Timorese to have reached safety; more than 30,000 of the 250,000 who fled or were forced into West Timor have made the trek in the past six weeks. But yesterday was the first time the land border had been officially open to refugees.
"This should be a big turning point in the repatriation process," said Mr Alias bin Ahmad, head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees team on the western side of the border. "Hopefully the floodgates will now open and we will be able to take convoys across every day."