Almost half a million civilians are still displaced by Sri Lanka’s war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to a report released in late September by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
The report “Civilians in the way of conflict: Displaced people in Sri Lanka” describes how many internally displaced people (IDPs) have been forced to return to areas still widely considered unsafe, without having any means of making the decision for themselves.
“The government must do more to involve displaced people in the planning and management of their return, ensuring that returns take place voluntarily, in safety and with dignity”, said the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Secretary General Tomas C. Archer.
Since April 2006, more than 300,000 people have been forced from their homes by the hostilities. Despite the government’s return programme, Sri Lanka still has one of the largest displaced populations in all of Asia – with some 460,000 people displaced by the conflict adding to those still without a home following the 2004 tsunami.
The country’s Tamil and Muslim communities are disproportionally affected.
The government’s return programme may stem from a disinclination to allow another large displacement situation to become permanent, and as such it should be welcomed, but the pace of its implementation may actually be endangering the life of the returnees.
Many returning IDPs still risk being caught in hostilities or conscripted into armed groups, and so they cannot be considered to have found a durable solution to end their displacement, the report found.
Even if they are not forced to flee renewed conflict, returning IDPs will face huge problems recovering their livelihoods in the face of the large-scale militarisation of farmland and fishing grounds.
In the course of the conflict, abuses of international humanitarian law have been frequently perpetrated by government forces, the LTTE, and in the east, the Karuna militia group which is reported to be aiding the army, the report said.
These have included the use of civilians as human shields, retaliatory killings, indiscriminate bombings, abductions and disappearances, all of which have encouraged people to flee.
With aid workers increasingly targeted in the conflict, all parties must also take steps to let humanitarian agencies play an active role in IDPs’ return and reintegration.
The report underlines that while all parties share the duty of ensuring that civilians in areas they control can live in safety and dignity, the government must develop and implement a national response to IDPs’ needs in line with the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.
Meanwhile, on the same day as the report was released, the UN food agency launched an urgent appeal for more money to feed thousands of people displaced by the continuing fighting.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it was short of eight million dollars to provide relief to thousands displaced by the conflict.
"I am concerned about our resourcing situations as we will be running out of food in November," said Jean-Yves Lequime, acting country director of the World Food Programme in Colombo.
"This is the moment to mobilise food for the vulnerable people," he said in a statement.
The WFP feeds around 1.15 million Sri Lankans, of whom 400,000, mainly Tamils, have been internally displaced.
Lequime said the agency was also short of 1.7 million dollars to maintain its UN-flagged trucks and to continue the UN Humanitarian Air Service unit between Colombo and the northern town of Jaffna.
People have fled towns and villages since December 2005 as fighting has escalated between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Sri Lankan security forces.
