UK agency adds to calls for Tamil resettlement

As heavy rain worsens the already poor conditions in Sri Lanka´s refugee camps, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) in the UK, has added its voice to calls for Tamils displaced by the civil war to be allowed to return home.

Heavy rains pummeled residents of Menik Farm camp recently. The camp holds more than 200,000 displaced people — photo courtesy of IRIN

It is now three months since the fighting ended but “like many of these situations, the dilemma is that the issue has faded from the headlines but the problem has not gone away,” said Pauline Taylor-McKeown, Cafod´s head of international programs.

Cafod is the UK partner of the international Catholic development agency Caritas.

About 300,000 Tamil civilians — more than 30,000 or them Catholics — are still held in 30 military camps in the districts of Mannar, Jaffna, Vavuniya and Trincomalee. Cafod has been working with Caritas Sri Lanka, which is feeding 83,700 of those held in the heavily guarded camps, providing drinking water and at least one cooked meal a day.

But its work has been hampered in recent days by monsoonal rain which has turned the camps into a sea of mud.

According to the United Nations-sponsored news agency IRIN, more than half of about 37,000 people in one camp were badly affected by the weather, with as many 12 people crowding into inundated tents meant for five. Latrines have overflowed, leading to the risk of water-borne diseases such as dysentery, IRIN quoted relief workers as saying.

UCA News also earlier reported that on Aug 15. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, addressing pilgrims gathered for the feast of the Assumption at the popular Madhu shrine, urged the Sri Lanka government to allow displaced people to return home.

McKeown, in a statement issued on Aug. 19, added: “It is difficult to see what security problem (the displaced people) could pose.” Because they are confined to the camps they are still separated from their families, adding to the trauma of war, she said.

“Nothing has changed over the past three months for the people in the camps,” she added.

“There are thousands of orphans and other vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with disabilities who are helpless and need to be moved urgently.”

The director of Caritas Sri Lanka, Father Damian Fernando, has also said: “These people have suffered massive hardship and have much more to face. It is freedom that they need.”