Amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka’s Northeast, the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse came under pressure this week to end its offensives against the Liberation Tigers.
At a meeting with the President on Monday, representatives of the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community – the United States, European Union, Norway and Japan – raised a number of concerns, reports said.
The envoys had discussed the mushrooming humanitarian crisis sharply triggered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive against the LTTE in Maavil Aru, Trincomalee on July 21.
That SLA offensive triggered confrontations with the LTTE on many fronts. Heavy fighting has taken place elsewhere in Trincomalee, but also in Batticaloa district and, especially, in the Jaffna peninsula where hundreds of combatants on both sides have died in bloody clashes this month.
The envoys had also discussed the Sri Lankan military’s targeting of civilians in airstrikes and the slaying of NGO workers in Muthur – widely blamed on the security forces, press reports said.
Last week scores of Tamil teenagers were killed when Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) jets bombed a children’s home at which residential first aid course was being run and three weeks ago, 17 local employees of a French aid agency were lined up and shot dead in the wake of SLA troops entering a contested town in Trincomalee district.
Overall, an estimated 160,000 people, mainly Tamils, but also tens of thousands of ethnic Muslims, have been displaced since April, the UN refugee agency said over the weekend.
They join hundreds of thousands of long-term war displaced, badly stretching the resources of local and international aid agencies in the Northeast.
The violence in Trincomalee in late July triggered a major displacement of Tamils and Muslims in the district.
But Sri Lanka’s military has since unleashed a systematic bombardment campaign against Tamil areas in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, southern Jaffna and Vanni.
“Some 15,000 to 20,000 people are now displaced in the Killinochchi area as a result of repeated [Sri Lankan] artillery shelling and air strikes,” UNHCR said.
Amid reports Sri Lankan forces were preventing people in the Jaffna peninsula from escaping intense fighting near the government’s southern defence lines, UNHCR appealed for the parties to the conflict “to permit freedom of movement to all civilians displaced by their conflict.”
Conditions for the displaced in LTTE-held areas are being compounded by a military blockade, including on aid workers.
Amid mounting criticisms by aid agencies, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke directly to President Rajapakse on August 16, urging him to allow relief workers into the LTTE areas.
Foreign diplomats in Colombo have pressed Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on the same issue.
But the government only allowed the International Red Cross (ICRC) to visit LTTE-held areas near Vakarai last Friday August 19, a full two weeks after tens of thousands of Tamils were driven from their homes by Sri Lanka air and artillery bombardment which has killed scores of civilians.
“We and our partners are now seriously concerned about the welfare of civilians in areas inaccessible to humanitarian agencies because of strictly enforced travel restrictions, as fighting continues in the north and east of Sri Lanka,” UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists in Geneva.
“Eastern districts face a similar crisis,” Pagonis said. “Thousands of displaced families in Muttur and Eachchilampattu divisions of Trincomalee district, and Vaharai division in Batticaloa district, are in desperate need of sustained humanitarian relief.”
“We have gained limited access to Vaharai [in Batticaloa],” Pagonis said, referring an area of Batticaloa receiving many thousands of displaced people from neighbouring Trincomalee.
About 12 thousand displaced Tamils trapped in LTTE held villages in Eachchilampathu division in the Trincomalee are not being supplied by NGOs and local government relief agencies since the fighting broke out, reports said.
Furthermore, most of the school buildings and concrete structures in these eastern areas have been damaged due to frequent Sri Lankan artillery fire and aerial bombardment which first started on April 25 and has regularly taken place since.
Only volunteers of Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) staying in Eachchilampathu division are looking after these IDPs with limited stock of food available on the ground.
The entry points to LTTE held Muttur east through Kaddaiparichchan SLA camp and to Eachchilampathu division through Mahindapura SLA camp have been completely closed for civilian movement and transport of food and essential items since the outbreak of fighting.
Indeed, since fighting began to flare up in April, UNHCR has recorded 162,000 Sri Lankans who have fled their homes but remain within the country, as well as 7,439 who have crossed the Palk Strait to become refugees in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.
More than 80,000 people from the eastern province are now in camps at Kantali and Serupura in government-controlled areas and at Vakarai in LTTE-controlled territory.
Around 50,000 of the former refugees come from or near the eastern town of Muttur, which was devastated in the fighting which erupted on August 2 as the LTTE counterattacked near the town to stifle the SLA offensive on Maavil Aru.
After the main access road to the Jaffna peninsula through the LTTE-controlled Killinochchi district was closed, supplies of food and water have fallen to what Pagonis described as “alarmingly low levels” in many locations.
“Unfortunately, we have limited stock [in LTTE-controlled Kilinochchi] and are not sure when new stock will arrive because of restrictions on road transport,” said Pagonis.
Humanitarian agencies in Kilinochchi are targeting their help to those displaced people – some 9,500 individuals – living outdoors under trees, or in communal buildings, the UNHCR said in a statement from its Geneva headquarters.
In Jaffna, a week of fighting and the LTTE’s severance of air and sea supply lines to the 40,000 strong SLA garrison in the northern peninsula has provoked further displaced and hardships.
Thousands of people including foreign nationals are stranded in Jaffna town and have joined lengthy waiting lists to leave by sea.
The LTTE says it counter-attacked an imminent SLA offensive at Muhamalai, sparking two weeks of bloody fighting (see page 3).
Over the weekend, the LTTE ceased its shelling of the Palaly airbase.
On Monday, the Air Force resumed limited flights between Ratmalana air base in Colombo and Palaly. But taking off and landing at Palaly is restricted to late evening or night and only two trips are being made each day.
In the meantime, prices for essential items, such as rice, sugar and vegetables, have skyrocketed in the peninsula, which is cut off from the south by a large swathe of LTTE-controlled territoriy.
Fuel, including petrol, diesel and kerosene, is in very short supply. Much of the area has been subject to continuous electricity blackouts. After moving most of their cash to the Palaly base for security, the banks restricted withdrawals to just 1,000 rupees ($US10) last Friday.
Following pleas from aid agencies and government officials in Jaffna this Tuesday, a ship with relief supplies for the peninsula’s residents was scheduled to depart from Colombo port.
The move came the day after the international envoys met to pressure President Rajapakse.
Last week the United States’ Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Steven Mann, made an unscheduled visit to meet with President Rajapaksa in Colombo.
He also met with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil parties.
Mr. Mann also met with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) chief Sarath Fonseka.
At a meeting with the President on Monday, representatives of the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community – the United States, European Union, Norway and Japan – raised a number of concerns, reports said.
The envoys had discussed the mushrooming humanitarian crisis sharply triggered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive against the LTTE in Maavil Aru, Trincomalee on July 21.
That SLA offensive triggered confrontations with the LTTE on many fronts. Heavy fighting has taken place elsewhere in Trincomalee, but also in Batticaloa district and, especially, in the Jaffna peninsula where hundreds of combatants on both sides have died in bloody clashes this month.
The envoys had also discussed the Sri Lankan military’s targeting of civilians in airstrikes and the slaying of NGO workers in Muthur – widely blamed on the security forces, press reports said.
Last week scores of Tamil teenagers were killed when Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) jets bombed a children’s home at which residential first aid course was being run and three weeks ago, 17 local employees of a French aid agency were lined up and shot dead in the wake of SLA troops entering a contested town in Trincomalee district.
Overall, an estimated 160,000 people, mainly Tamils, but also tens of thousands of ethnic Muslims, have been displaced since April, the UN refugee agency said over the weekend.
They join hundreds of thousands of long-term war displaced, badly stretching the resources of local and international aid agencies in the Northeast.
The violence in Trincomalee in late July triggered a major displacement of Tamils and Muslims in the district.
But Sri Lanka’s military has since unleashed a systematic bombardment campaign against Tamil areas in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, southern Jaffna and Vanni.
“Some 15,000 to 20,000 people are now displaced in the Killinochchi area as a result of repeated [Sri Lankan] artillery shelling and air strikes,” UNHCR said.
Amid reports Sri Lankan forces were preventing people in the Jaffna peninsula from escaping intense fighting near the government’s southern defence lines, UNHCR appealed for the parties to the conflict “to permit freedom of movement to all civilians displaced by their conflict.”
Conditions for the displaced in LTTE-held areas are being compounded by a military blockade, including on aid workers.
Amid mounting criticisms by aid agencies, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke directly to President Rajapakse on August 16, urging him to allow relief workers into the LTTE areas.
Foreign diplomats in Colombo have pressed Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera on the same issue.
But the government only allowed the International Red Cross (ICRC) to visit LTTE-held areas near Vakarai last Friday August 19, a full two weeks after tens of thousands of Tamils were driven from their homes by Sri Lanka air and artillery bombardment which has killed scores of civilians.
“We and our partners are now seriously concerned about the welfare of civilians in areas inaccessible to humanitarian agencies because of strictly enforced travel restrictions, as fighting continues in the north and east of Sri Lanka,” UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists in Geneva.
“Eastern districts face a similar crisis,” Pagonis said. “Thousands of displaced families in Muttur and Eachchilampattu divisions of Trincomalee district, and Vaharai division in Batticaloa district, are in desperate need of sustained humanitarian relief.”
“We have gained limited access to Vaharai [in Batticaloa],” Pagonis said, referring an area of Batticaloa receiving many thousands of displaced people from neighbouring Trincomalee.
About 12 thousand displaced Tamils trapped in LTTE held villages in Eachchilampathu division in the Trincomalee are not being supplied by NGOs and local government relief agencies since the fighting broke out, reports said.
Furthermore, most of the school buildings and concrete structures in these eastern areas have been damaged due to frequent Sri Lankan artillery fire and aerial bombardment which first started on April 25 and has regularly taken place since.
Only volunteers of Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) staying in Eachchilampathu division are looking after these IDPs with limited stock of food available on the ground.
The entry points to LTTE held Muttur east through Kaddaiparichchan SLA camp and to Eachchilampathu division through Mahindapura SLA camp have been completely closed for civilian movement and transport of food and essential items since the outbreak of fighting.
Indeed, since fighting began to flare up in April, UNHCR has recorded 162,000 Sri Lankans who have fled their homes but remain within the country, as well as 7,439 who have crossed the Palk Strait to become refugees in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state.
More than 80,000 people from the eastern province are now in camps at Kantali and Serupura in government-controlled areas and at Vakarai in LTTE-controlled territory.
Around 50,000 of the former refugees come from or near the eastern town of Muttur, which was devastated in the fighting which erupted on August 2 as the LTTE counterattacked near the town to stifle the SLA offensive on Maavil Aru.
After the main access road to the Jaffna peninsula through the LTTE-controlled Killinochchi district was closed, supplies of food and water have fallen to what Pagonis described as “alarmingly low levels” in many locations.
“Unfortunately, we have limited stock [in LTTE-controlled Kilinochchi] and are not sure when new stock will arrive because of restrictions on road transport,” said Pagonis.
Humanitarian agencies in Kilinochchi are targeting their help to those displaced people – some 9,500 individuals – living outdoors under trees, or in communal buildings, the UNHCR said in a statement from its Geneva headquarters.
In Jaffna, a week of fighting and the LTTE’s severance of air and sea supply lines to the 40,000 strong SLA garrison in the northern peninsula has provoked further displaced and hardships.
Thousands of people including foreign nationals are stranded in Jaffna town and have joined lengthy waiting lists to leave by sea.
The LTTE says it counter-attacked an imminent SLA offensive at Muhamalai, sparking two weeks of bloody fighting (see page 3).
Over the weekend, the LTTE ceased its shelling of the Palaly airbase.
On Monday, the Air Force resumed limited flights between Ratmalana air base in Colombo and Palaly. But taking off and landing at Palaly is restricted to late evening or night and only two trips are being made each day.
In the meantime, prices for essential items, such as rice, sugar and vegetables, have skyrocketed in the peninsula, which is cut off from the south by a large swathe of LTTE-controlled territoriy.
Fuel, including petrol, diesel and kerosene, is in very short supply. Much of the area has been subject to continuous electricity blackouts. After moving most of their cash to the Palaly base for security, the banks restricted withdrawals to just 1,000 rupees ($US10) last Friday.
Following pleas from aid agencies and government officials in Jaffna this Tuesday, a ship with relief supplies for the peninsula’s residents was scheduled to depart from Colombo port.
The move came the day after the international envoys met to pressure President Rajapakse.
Last week the United States’ Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Steven Mann, made an unscheduled visit to meet with President Rajapaksa in Colombo.
He also met with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil parties.
Mr. Mann also met with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) chief Sarath Fonseka.
