WHILE the Sri Lankan government 'celebrates' the 'liberation' of the east, observers predict that the conflict, and the humanitarian crisis in Tamil areas, will only deteriorate.
In the east many of the displaced have been able to return home, although aid workers fear some may have been sent back against their will. However many have not returned
to their traditional homes, and others continue to move, citing local insecurity and fears of armed groups.
Tamil residents have been stopped from returning to what used to be the LTTE areas in
Sampur, near the strategic northeastern port of Trincomalee as the area has been declared a high security zone for the military.
"The residents are still stuck in camps," one Western aid worker told Reuters. "The fear is that it could eventually amount to ethnic cleansing."
The Sri Lankan military is also blocking shipments of cement, steel, fuel and other items from reaching LTTE territory, Reuters reported.
This has forced aid groups to shelve post-tsunami housing projects as well as plans to build schools and hospitals in the Tamil areas most impacted by the war and the 2004 tsunami. And NGOs are to be closely supervised in the east, with the Sri Lankan military announcing that regional authorities will be “supervising” all development work by NGOs in the region. In the north, the shortage of food and essential items is biting hard, with rising levels of acute malnutrition being seen in Jaffna.
Livelihoods and markets have been disrupted by conflict and displacement, the closure of a major highway, and security-related restrictions on farming and fishing, IRIN reported.
"Food assistance for the internally displaced and other vulnerable groups has been in short supply for months," the agency said.
The Jaffna District Government Agent, K. Ganesh, says 51% of the Jaffna population, who are dependent on farming, have had their productivity impacted by the lack of fertilizer and no access to farmlands, which have been declared security zones.
Another 9% are impacted by the fishing restrictions, with estimates that their production is 10% of the pre-conflict levels.
About 165,000 people in Jaffna are highly reliant on food assistance, including internally
displaced people (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups.
The Sri Lankan Commissioner General of Essential Services says it provides government food to 45,000 of these IDPs and vulnerable people and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is responsible for 120,000 more.
But WFP says it has been a challenge to meet its food-assistance goals for Jaffna.
Meanwhile, along with civilians, aid workers are continuing to be targeted, with a field officer of the Danish Refugee Council, an international humanitarian organization
in Jaffna, being shot dead last week. Arumainayagam Alloysius, 26, had been with the Halo Trust, another INGO, but had switched to the joined the Danish agency when the Halo Trust discontinued its work in the peninsula recently. More than 13 Halo
Trust staffers have been either killed, abducted or gone missing in the recent past.
