Support Indy
Media

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

Read CC In Your
Own Language

CC Malayalam

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

Peak Oil

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Globalisation

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

WSF

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About CC

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name: E-mail:

Printer Friendly Version

Agony, Uncertainty For
Sri Lanka's War Displaced

By Mel Gunasekera

28 May, 2009
AFP

MANIK FARM, Sri Lanka (AFP) — A young mother shows a picture of her missing baby, last seen injured and screaming as her family dodged shells and bullets to escape the final battle between Sri Lankan troops and the Tamil Tigers.

A relative handed over the bleeding two-year-old Shrivachandran Jeyshan to soldiers for medical treatment. It's been three weeks, and no one knows which hospital he was taken to, or even if he survived a head wound.

"Can you help us find the baby?" pleads his father Ratnam Rasiah. The mother sits next to him, sobbing.

The distraught family is not alone. Locked up in army-run displaced person camps are countless other Tamil civilians, with no freedom of movement and separated from their loved ones.

Up to 300,000 people have been put in what the government calls "welfare villages," which are ringed by barbed wire and Sri Lankan troops.

A. Jalini says her husband and teenage daughter were held back at one of the military checkpoints when they crossed over in the last days of the decades-long civil war that ended last week with the killing of the Tamil Tigers' entire leadership.

"The army people said they (husband and daughter) were LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suspects," Jalini said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said 9,100 people -- mostly those of a fighting age -- have been weeded out as suspected LTTE fighters.

"The adults are held at six rehabilitation centres, while more than 100 former child soldiers are held elsewhere," Nanayakkara said during a military guided tour to the Manik Farm complex.

Spread over 565 hectares (1,400 acres) of newly cleared forest land, over 260,000 displaced people are crammed inside the muddy Manik Farm facility, 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of the northern town of Vavuniya.

Visitors are not allowed into the camps, and only those seeking medical treatment can leave the compound. The camps are open to a limited number of aid agencies, while journalists can only enter under military supervision.

"It's like living inside an open-air jail," said Jayakumar Rajadurai, a Tamil farm worker, while looking around at the high fences and sandbagged guard bunkers.

During a lightning one-day visit on Saturday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the camp conditions were "appalling" and pressed the government to allow aid agencies more access to work inside the camps. He left without any such assurance.

Local government official P. Charles admitted authorities were struggling to provide basic amenities like food and drinking water.

"We have been overwhelmed with people coming over since January. With limited resources and help from aid agencies, we are doing our best to cope," she said.

Severine Ramon, coordinator for the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group, said Sri Lanka's displaced were living in misery.

"Due to unhygienic living conditions, even wounds are not healing, prolonging the agony of those living inside the camps," she said.

The Sri Lankan government says aid workers will not be given complete access to the camps until they are confident that former rebel fighters -- and possible LTTE sleeper cells -- have been weeded out.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.



Leave A Comment
&
Share Your Insights

Comment Policy

Fair Use Notice


 

Share This Article



Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands of people more. You just share it on your favourite social networking site. You can also email the article from here.



Disclaimer

 

Feed Burner

Twitter

Face Book

Support Indy
Media

 

Search Our Archive

 



Our Site

Web