Humanitarian Tragedy in Sri Lanka

                   Sri Lanka is in the midst of human rights crisis today especially in Vanni Northern Sri Lanka.  More than 400,000 people are living under trees with no shelters and sub human condition with no food, water, medicine or any other facilities.  There is an ongoing war between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE.  No body knows what is happening in Vanni.  The Sri Lankan government had ordered all the foreign agencies and journalist out of Vanni.  The main reason for sending them is to hide the atrocities he let loose on the innocent civilians there to the outside world.

                        One such attack, on Wednesday the Sri Lankan President unilaterally announced a “Secure Zone” and ordered the civilians to move there.  It was just a 30 square km area of marshy land and jungle.  On Monday, 26th in a scene of carnage of untold proportion, the Sri Lankan army fired artillery shells and killed more than 300 people and injured over thousand.  These injured are sure to die because there is no medicine or hospitals to treat them.  The hospital and the 3 ambulances were destroyed in the attack.   The injured, if they cannot move on their own, are left unattended to bleed to death.

More than 300 people have died and over 1000 injured

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28153 

http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=28151 

                        "People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded. The violence is preventing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from operating in the region," said Jacques de Maio, ICRC head of operations for South Asia in Geneva .

 Sri Lanka: Major Humanitarion Crisis Unfolding  http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/sri-lanka-news270109?OpenDocument 

                        Not only the civilians, even the journalists are not exempted.  Sri Lanka has the lowest press freedom rating of any democracy and has been the first to use anti-terror law to prosecute journalist.  The Sri Lankan government who is famous for carrying out many-extra judicial execution and kidnappings and censorship is predator of press freedom.  It takes severe measures against the independent press groups and close down radio net works and publications.

 If you write you’ll be killed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/17/lasantha-wickrematunge-assassination 

                        More than 15 journalists were brutally murdered and few kidnapped since 2006.  The latest was of Lasantha Wikramatunga on January 17.  He wrote his obituary before his death.  It read “When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me”  He also wrote “Murder has become the primary tool whereby, the state seeks to control the organs of liberty”  Neither of the killings and disappearances were seriously investigated or suspects brought to justice.

Sri Lankan journalists protest against attacks on media

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/sril-j07.shtml 

                        All these are not merely human crisis, but a shame on the whole human civilization. The suffering of Tamils civilians due to the daily shelling and bombing by the Sri Lankan armed forces aided by the International governments. The International community is silently watching the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka.  Now it has become the responsibility of the journalist to bring the world as a whole what is humanitarian and teach them.  

http://www.tamileelamnews.com/news/publish/tns_10897.shtml