Eleven days after the Sri Lankan government declared victory over Tamil rebels in the country’s north, aid organizations are slowly beginning to get freer access to the 265,000 civilians displaced by the fighting, but not quickly enough to meet the vast needs, the New York Times reported Saturday (May 30) quoting aid officials in the region.
Sarasi Wijeratne, spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Sri Lanka, said that the organization had access to the camps, but that “clear procedures are still lacking.”
Conditions in the camps clumped around the northern district of Vavuniya remain horrifically crowded and basic items like cooking pots and blankets are in short supply, according to aid agencies.
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“These people in the camps are in a dire situation. The camps are overcrowded, and we need to build much more shelters,” Elizabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the United Nations, said.
On Friday, The Times reported that at least 20,000 Tamils were killed, mostly by army shelling, in the closing stages of Eelam War. It carried photographs of the ‘no-fire zone’ as evidence. But Colombo denounced the reports and the photographs as propaganda.
