Mohammed Shaheen, who survived the tsunami that devastated India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, stands outside a relief camp as Christian and Hindu groups argue over who would run it.
"How can you be fighting over victims?" asks a dazed and shocked Shaheen, who has just arrived after a navy ship picked him up from Katchal island, where about half the 8800 residents are missing.
A group led by Christian aid agencies says the administration in the islands' capital, Port Blair, gave them the camp. The other group, affiliated with India's main hardline Hindu organisation, insists it is theirs.
After a while, they thrash out a compromise: the Hindu group linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will run it for the first week, then the Christian group.
But it is too late for Mr Shaheen. Disgusted, he and his family pack their bags and move to another camp on Bamboo Flat island, 45 kilometres from Port Blair.
"We are more comfortable here; there is no dispute here," he says, standing outside the tented camp on a hillside overlooking a smashed jetty.
Scores of volunteers from Hindu, Christian and Muslim groups have landed in the islands, more than 1200 kilometres from mainland India, offering everything from food and water to solace and self-healing tips to the survivors.
"There is a competition going on, both religious and political," says Madhu Krishan, head of Islanders Sangatthan Manch, a group campaigning against an influx of outsiders to protect the fragile ecological balance and the traditions of primitive tribes.
"There is already too much upheaval, displacement. This kind of competing for influence makes it worse."
Hindu and Christian groups have long been at odds on the mainland, with Hindu hardliners accusing Christian missionaries of in effect bribing poor people and tribals to take part in mass conversions.
Christians, barely 2 per cent of mainly Hindu but officially secular India, say all conversions are voluntary and accuse Hindu radicals of whipping up a climate of distrust and fear against the tiny community.
Both sides have been active in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, whose 350,000 people are largely Hindu, from descendants of settlers during the British Raj to more recent migrants.
But there are also about 30,000 Nicobarese tribals, the largest of about half a dozen tribes. They are mostly Christian and there are a few Muslims living in the Nicobar group, where outsiders are barred without government permission.
Christian groups say scores of Hindu volunteers have been allowed into the outlying islands ostensibly for relief work, while they have been discouraged from travelling. "We were told volunteers are already in the area, so you needn't go there," says Alex Joseph, of the Discipleship Centre, a New Delhi-based Christian group.
But the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an affiliate of the RSS which focuses on tribal welfare, said the tsunami was a humanitarian disaster, and had nothing to do with religion. Instead it accuses Christian agencies of partisanship in relief work.
Mukesh Kumar Gupta, secretary of the Hindu group, says he ran a relief camp for five days for about 900 Nicobarese Christians without a complaint. But last week a Nicobarese tribal leader arrived, saying he wanted to shift all the Nicobarese to a bigger camp.
"The survivors were very happy here, they didn't want to move, but some people could not stomach the idea of Christians in our camp. As far as we were concerned, it didn't matter who they were."