Tsunami emergency over but housing remains priority

The work of Caritas and other NGOs has yielded satisfying results. All have shelter but many people are still living in centres for displaced. The government has forbidden reconstruction along the coast but it has yet to identify land for new homes.

Colombo (AsiaNews/Agencies) – One year after the tsunami tragedy which claimed 31,000 victims in Sri Lanka, this island of Ceylon has surpassed the emergency phase. This is mainly thanks to the outpouring of humanitarian aid and professional input from Caritas and other non-governmental organizations. "Our long-term programme has yielded good results and the local people appreciated our work," said a spokesman of Caritas, which dished out one-fourth of Ceylon's tsunami aid. This view was confirmed by civil protection authorities too: "Schools and hospitals barely function, but they do function, and delays are mostly down to the civil war problem." Even economic activities along the coast, mostly linked to fishing, are being resumed.

In all, 103,000 new homes have been built and all have shelter. However the housing problem remains the priority. "Many people still live in centres for displaced people," said the Apostolic Nuncio Mario Zenari. "The priority is to rebuild private residences fast."

One problem facing reconstruction is a lack of land. The government has set up a "buffer zone", a strip of coastal land right by the sea within which construction is forbidden for security reasons. Whoever lived in these areas must now go to live elsewhere, but the government has been unable to pinpoint potential sites. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people are still living in centres for displaced people. Caritas has been able to build only 6,500 homes, a quarter of the estimated amount, and is waiting for the government to allocate land. Even Bill Clinton, while declaring that plenty had been achieved in Sri Lanka, said that "there is still much more to be done: we must give displaced people permanent residences and homes".

Whoever used to live on the coast must wait for a long time, and perhaps will be forced to live inland. According to the NGO Oxfam, the Sri Lankan government offered houses to fishermen but their offer was often inappropriate because the fishermen would have been placed too far from the sea. "In many cases, this means the reconstruction process cannot even start." Added to all this is the fear that the government wants to pump the funds into tourist infrastructure. Thus, the decision to set up tourist installations in the buffer zone is being contested: there are concerns that the government plan is to shift the fishermen further inland to allocate the beaches for tourism. Meanwhile, Caritas is promoting a plan which protects the structure of the local community.

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• lanka
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• colombo
• caritas
• ngo
• buffer
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• ceylon
• homes
• coast
• coastal
• fishermen