Sri Lanka faces catastrophe as UN aid blocked UPDATES

Jakob Kellenberger said he has asked the Sri Lankan government for access to all displacement camps to check on conditions for hundreds of thousands of civilians uprooted in recent months of fighting.

"We have access to some camps and we don't have access to others," Kellenberger said. He declined to give further details.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which usually refrains from publicly criticizing governments, is mandated under the Geneva Conventions to aid victims of warfare.

But the ICRC, like the United Nations and other aid agencies, complained that the Sri Lankan government denied it access to the war zone during the final weeks of the conflict. The other agencies also have had problems reaching camps since the war ended.

Most of the displaced people have been confined in Manik Farm, described by the UN as the world's largest displacement camp - housing 210,000 people in endless rows of white tents on a 570-hectare lot of former scrubland in the country's north.

The Sri Lanka government had banned the use of motor vehicles by U.N. and other aid agencies at the camp, citing concerns that some rebels might try to escape in or under the vehicles. U.N. officials had complained that the restrictions were crippling aid distribution at the camp.

"An interim measure has been agreed whereby aid agency vehicles including trucks can now travel in and out of Manik Farm zones, only not in convoy and without agency flags," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters.

She added that the military had announced it was leaving the camps and would hand over control to civilian authorities.

Father Amalraj, a Catholic priest, was shocked by what he found on his arrival with his parishioners on a military bus last Monday.

“I read in a book on the Second World War about concentration camps,” he says. “I feel we are experiencing that now. The concentration camps of the Second World War are here in Sri Lanka.”

At Manik Farm, the boys — and some girls — of fighting age were separated for screening and have not been seen since. Many are under age and were never willing combatants — the Tigers were notorious for abducting children to fight and carry arms.

The lack of outside aid unnerves the inmates. “There is no people like you here,” Kumar whispers, hiding behind the crowds lined up for Mr Ban’s visit. “There is not enough food. There is not enough hospital here.”

How long does he think he will he be here for? “I don’t know. Maybe forever? We are afraid we will be killed. If I tell the truth, I will be killed.”

Father Amalraj says his parishioners have been beaten by the soldiers. The Government talks of reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese, but there is no sign of it here.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka's president on Sunday rejected a call by the U.N. secretary-general to lift restrictions on aid delivery to overcrowded displacement camps, saying the army must first finish screening the hundreds of thousands of Tamil refugees.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's statement came in response to an appeal by Ban Ki-moon during a 24-hour visit to Sri Lanka for unfettered access for aid agencies to the camps, where nearly 300,000 Tamils were herded during the final stages of the war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

He warned during a news conference with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama that unless the government can reconcile with the country's Tamil minority, "history could repeat itself."

After visiting the barbed wire-enclosed Manik Farm camp Saturday, Ban described conditions as "very, very difficult. It's a real challenge." He said the government lacked the resources to deal with the problem, but that the U.N. could fill the gaps.

"It was a very sobering visit, very sad, very moving," he said.

Civilians told Ban they had escaped the war zone after coming under intense shelling from both the rebels and the government.

"We ran for our lives from the shelling in the north," said one man who gave his name as Krishnathurai. "It was coming from both sides, the Tamil Tigers and the military, and we were stuck in the middle."

Ban then flew over the former battle ground to see for himself, and saw a wasteland of scorched earth, shell craters and burned-out vehicles and tent camps.

The government has denied firing heavy weapons into an area that had been densely populated with civilians who had been kept their against their will by the rebels. But the helicopter tour given by the military to Ban and a group of journalists revealed widespread devastation.

Rajapaksa said the return of the refugees was contingent on clearing land mines from the areas, and asked for international assistance.

In Vavuniya itself, refugees have been housed in 23 small detention centres established in public schools and other government buildings. Every camp is packed with between 1,000 and 3,000 people. We were able to visit two schools. Both centres were guarded by armed policemen and soldiers. Barbed wire fences have been set up around the camps. Few people are allowed inside. The media is completely barred.

At one school, we could only see the faces of people as we spoke to them across a high, razor-wire topped wall. As we spoke to one person, two children began crying, asking us to take them away from the camp. Inside, up to 40 people are crammed into each school room. Small tents have been erected in school grounds.

From what various people told us, conditions inside the camps are crowded and unhygenic. In some centres, detainees can bathe twice a week. In others, there is not even enough water to wash. There are not enough toilets in any of the camps and hundreds of people have to use one toilet. Infectious diseases, including diarrhea, viral fever and chickenpox, are becoming common.

We were told that hundreds of children had been wounded during the fighting over the no-fire zone. Some had still not been treated. Virtually every family we spoke to had lost at least one member. The trauma of being trapped for months in the war zone is now being compounded by the conditions in the camps. No one can leave. Relatives who visit can only provide a few essentials.

Several older people told us that every day the army seizes young men and women from the camps and takes them away. No one knows where. In some cases, masked informers are used to identify “LTTE suspects”. The military claims that about 3,000 LTTE fighters fled with the civilian refugees.

In every sense, these centres are concentration camps. The armed police and soldiers who zealously guard them, are to not there to “protect” the refugees as the govenment cynically claims, but to prevent anyone from leaving and any information from filtering out.

Redmond describes the civilians coming out of the conflict zone as being sick, hungry and suffering from acute malnourishment and dehydration. He says the hygiene, health and shelter conditions at a school, where new arrivals are being screened and registered are sub-standard.

He says this latest massive influx of people, who have endured extreme conditions, will put an even greater strain on the sites. And, they, he says, are already buckling under the pressure of the existing population. 

UN spokesman Gordon Weiss is calling on the Sri Lankan Government to grant urgent access to aid groups.

"I think it's very important. Donors don't hand over blank cheques in these circumstances," he said.

"A neutral eye is important. The UN has a role to play here, as do the International Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies."

It is still not known exactly how many people have been killed or injured in the conflict, or just how large the emergency is.

The Sri Lankan Government says it does not want advice from the international community, but rather materials to help in the rebuilding effort.

The Sri Lankan Government has blocked access to aid workers trying to help the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by the army’s victory over the Tamil Tigers, raising the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe.

In the capital, Colombo, President Rajapakse announced the “complete defeat” of the rebels yesterday as state television showed pictures of what was said to be the corpse of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ leader. Mr Rajapakse vowed in an address to the nation to press ahead with a “homegrown political solution” to end ethnic divisions between the majority Sinhalese population and minority Tamils.

As he spoke, an estimated 80,000 people — mostly Tamil, many of them sick, malnourished or suffering from battlefield wounds — were making their way on foot from the war zone In the north to government-run camps that are already swamped. The UN is not being allowed any access to them, The Times has learnt.

Preema, a Tamil woman, arrived at the 400-hectare (990-acre) Menic farm camp on Sunday. She had left Mullaivaikal, the centre of the fighting, where the Tigers had made their final stand before being defeated, days before, after being shelled heavily.

She set out with her husband, mother and two children, to wade through the Nandikadal lagoon — a waterway strewn with mines — in a desperate attempt to reach safety.

There were deep craters where the lagoon had been bombed and people often drowned, she said. A man offered to carry her ten-year-old daughter. Preema never saw them again. Her husband was taken away later by government troops at a checkpoint in Oomanthai, where refugees are being forced to strip before being allowed to pass, after admitting that he had worked for the Tigers. Her mother died in the lagoon.

“Everything is lost,” said Preema, holding her son, 7. “Please help me find my daughter. Not knowing anything is making me crazy.”

Inside one camp, Nandani, 76, described being forced to stand for up to five hours a day queueing for food.

Kala, a middle-aged woman, spoke about the constant indignities of her new life. “I do not have underwear. I am unable to use the Kotex that the Red Cross handed out,” she said, holding a packet of sanitary towels she had been given before the organisation’s access to the camp was restricted.

Kothai, another woman, said: “There is a bad distribution system within the camp. Every time it is the same people that get \. Men crowd around and push the women and children aside.”

Government officials did not answer requests for comment. Access for aid agencies to another 200,000 refugees already in the internment camps — which the Government call “welfare villages” — has been severely restricted since Sunday, preventing the administration of basic care.