Caritas fears humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka as violence escalates
Colombo (AsiaNews) – Caritas fears the steady increase in violence in Sri Lanka has now erupted into open conflict. Over 200,000 people have been forced from their homes in the northand northeast of the country, threatening a humanitarian disaster. The National director of Caritas Sri Lanka tells of the grave situation and their work on the ground.
In just the past two weeks, the town of Batticaloa has become refuge to some 50,000 people fleeing attacks and shelling. Another 40,000 people have crossed from the conflict zones intogovernment-controlled areas to flee the fighting. Caritas Sri Lanka is providing cooked meals, dry food, clothing, shelter and other basic supplies to people trapped by the fighting in Batticaloa, the Jaffna Peninsula and the Valuthayam-Mannar area, but fear that stocking piles will soon run dry as the conflict worsens.
Caritas Internationalis (which groups together over 162 Catholic organisations from over 200 countries) calls on all parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating table, and it calls upon the international community to engage once again in Sri Lanka to help bring about peace. The war that has already lasted 25 years has left as many as 70,000 people – mostly civilians – dead.
Father Damian Fernando, director of Caritas Sri Lanka, observes that “The situation is very volatile. At any moment, anything can happen. The government appears to have gone on the offensive andto be seeking a military solution to the conflict. So the country is on a war footing”. Sri Lanka has a law called the Prevention of Terrorism Act, recently “it is being used against people who speak out in favour of or promotion of peace. People are being arrested and detained for this. They can bekept in jail for any amount of time, even years”.
Fr Damian continues – “We have various paramilitary groups that are active, and killings and disappearances are on the rise. Some of them are political killings, and some even happen in the capital Colombo, but sometimes it could be anybody that gets killed”.
Now “the army has advanced eastwards to occupy areas which were under rebel control around Batticaloa. As a result over 10 thousand families have fled Batticaloa in the last 2 weeks, that’s almost 50 thousand people. We're bringing food and non-food items there”.
In this situation “Caritas is seen as neutral. We are there because the Church is there and we continue to support the local population. In the Northern area of Jaffna web ring aid to those who have been left homeless because of the war. Countless numbers have been living in refugee camps, since the government closed down the area. But we are allowed to move within the territories controlled by both sides in the conflict, because web ring food and non food aid and we are givinglivelihoods and educational support there”.
Even if Caritas is neutral it has “been participating in ongoing discussions between the different sides. We are working quietly with all sides: the government, the LTTE and the Buddhist People'sLiberation Front to help bring about peace. We are also speaking with other Tamil groups and Muslim groups”.
Caritas is also helping in post – tsunami construction in Sri Lanka. But the current conflict has forced them to abandon many projects. Fr Damian adds “February last we handed over 120 houses to families whose homes were destroyed by the tsunami. But all of our work has been slowedsomewhat by the scarcity and the soaring prices of building materials”.
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27/11/2023 16:58
12/10/2017 12:42
