The Sri Lankan government was deliberately carrying out a "horrendous act of genocide" by denying food and humanitarian access to the civilian population, charged Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Political Head B. Nadesan on Sunday 3 May.
Mr. Nadesan pointed out the imminent danger of starvation escalating exponentially and urged the International Community not to fail in its duty to ensure humanitarian access to the civilian population under siege by the Sri Lankan military.
Meanwhile, health officials in Vanni report that several children faint from hunger within the so-called safety zone every day.
Deliberate denial of food by
The LTTE was always fully prepared to extend its support to ensure humanitarian supplies and international humanitarian access to the civilian population, Mr. Nadesan told TamilNet.
He further said that the LTTE political division was engaged in saving the lives of civilians who were suffering from hunger and starvation.
Government officials responsible for food distribution, when contacted by TamilNet, said they only received 60 MT food supplies after 02 April. 2,475 MT supplies are needed for a month for 165,000 civilians according to World Food Programme (WFP) specifications, they said.
The ICRC has responded that it was waiting for
Meanwhile, the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) reported that while the need of food for the estimated 165,000 people, as determined by the District Secretariat, is roughly 2500 MT a month, ships brought only 60 MT for the whole of April, and the 1100 MT announced by the Sri Lanka Government to be loaded in Trincomalee in ships, never materialized.
The World Food Program is limited by the Government of Sri Lanka to send a quantity of food barely sufficient to keep alive 50,000 people, a number GoSL is willing to admit as the numbers holed up in the Safe Zone, said Lawrence Christy, head of the TRO field office in the Safety Zone.
“TRO is continuing the gruel provision activity at Mullivaikal too. 17 centres are functioning for fulfilling this essential task. From morning 10 to evening 4 they provide gruel to hungry people. People – young and old line up with jugs under hot sun and drink that rice gruel. The ingredients of the rice gruel are rice, water, salt and milk,” he said.
"Dead bodies are being taken by TRO volunteers for burial or cremation. Dead bodies have to be collected from shelters and bunkers. When dead bodies are brought to the hospitals or when the wounded people died in the hospital as the treatment failed they also have to be picked up. Almost all the dead bodies amounting about 6,500 were collected by TRO and buried or cremated," TRO said in the report on relief activities.
