Concern over civilian casualties

By Raisa Wickrematunge

Humanitarian agencies last week continued to express their concerns over the civilians still caught in the conflict zone and called for wider access for aid workers to the area.

The ICRC last week stated that thousands were still trapped in the narrow coastal strip, declared as the no-fire zone in Mullaithivu.

More than 115,450 persons had fled the LTTE controlled areas since April 20. Government officials in Vavuniya said that the displaced persons were being kept in 24 sites including four transitional villages and around 15 schools.

The UN said that more than 172,000 persons had managed to cross over to government held territory since late October last year.

The ICRC had been carrying out frequent evacuations of patients from Puthumathalan to Trincomalee and Pulmoddai. 

The ICRC has evacuated a total of 12,400 people since February 10 when they started operations, with 520 civilians boarding the  ICRC chartered vessel 'Green Ocean,'  on April 29.

"Given the catastrophic situation of thousands of displaced, sick and wounded people still in the conflict area, the parties must do more to protect them and must allow more food and medicine into the area," said Monica Zanarelli, the ICRC's deputy head of operations for South Asia.

The ICRC has taken up the task of reuniting the families separated while fleeing the no-fire zone. There is also difficulty in reuniting families who have been separated and are in different camps.

The ICRC report said that while steps had been taken to start reuniting families, there were still thousands of cases which  needed to be addressed. This situation is further complicated in Vavuniya, where the Defence, Public Security, Law and Order Ministry has asked individuals and organisations to refrain from entering the Menik Farm Camp, since officials have informed the Ministry that outside visitors are a hinderance to their work in the camp.

Government officials rejected a suggestion by Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, who called for a "humanitarian pause" in the combat zone in order to allow UN humanitarian personnel to provide assistance to the approximately 50,000 people trapped in the conflict zone.

In a report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Holmes, returning from a two day visit to Sri Lanka, said the civilians were not only at risk from the heavy firing going on in the combat zone, but that they were "suffering extensively due to shortage of medical supplies, food and water." He spoke of the need for the government to refrain from using heavy weaponry as they had earlier promised, in order to ensure the safety of these civilians.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also spoke of the need for wider access for humanitarian agencies into the no-fire zone as well as to the IDP camps. He added that it was imperative to ensure the safety of  civilians  fleeing the no-fire zone,  to the point where they were screened before entry into the IDP camps.

Although the OCHA report places the number of displaced people at around 170,000, Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said that roughly 190,000 civilians had crossed to safety. He said that they were currently waiting for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to finish demining and certify certain villages as free of pressure bombs, and that they had already begun to resettle some of the IDPs.

On April 29, a UNHCR report confirmed that around 411 IDPs returned to the Saveriyapuram village in Musali, located in the Mannar District, with some 3000 IDPs registering to return to 15 villages in Musali.

The huge influx of civilians into the camps has lead to the need for more camps to be built, and the OCHA report noted that a new camp was under construction in Kodikamam, Jaffna, which will accommodate up to 1500 families, while in Vavuniya some families had to be transferred from Menik Farm Zone 2 to Zone 1 due to lack of space.

Non Governmental Organisations, CARITAS and the World Food Programme (WFP) are providing foodstuff to camps while Sri Lanka Red Cross, Medicins Sans Frontiers and Alliance Development Trust are providing medical expertise to treat the injured and sick civilians in the camps. In Jaffna, there are only 280 toilets available for all the IDPs, which means at least 41 people have to share one toilet.

During the period  October 27, 2008 to  April 30 this year 172,291 persons have crossed to the government controlled areas from the conflict zone. This represents an increase of 1,107 IDPs since the last report (Sitrep No.3) on  April 29. More than 100,000 people have left the conflict zone since April 20.

170,396 people are accommodated in the temporary camps in Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Trincomalee

1,895 IDPs (injured and care givers) are in hospitals in various districts as of 29 April 2009.