Release or not release IDPs?: Govt ‘Onna Menna’

By Thava Sajitharan

As intermittent rains continued to affect the IDPs held in Menik farm, Cheddikulam causing serious health problems, the government indicated last week it was considering releasing a batch of IDPs who have relatives in Vavuniya whom they can go and stay with, according to NGO sources based in Vavuniya.

“However, much more efforts need to be put in place to alleviate the issues created by flood in the IDP camps” sources said.

Minister of Resettlement Rishard Badhiyudeen held a meeting with humanitarian agencies last week to discuss measures to be taken in regard to the conditions in the IDP camps.

“Some IDPs have been relocated to higher places within the camps so that flooding won’t affect them as severely as it did in the past ten days”, a Vavuniya-based source who visited the camp last week said, requesting anonymity.

“Earlier, the government was said to be thinking of other options such as moving the affected people to schools outside the Menik farm. But now they seem to have decided against it” he said.

“Building up an effective drainage system in Menik farm was one of the focal issues discussed at the meeting with Minister Badhiyudeen” he added.

“We also learn that the government is thinking of allowing the IDPs who have relatives in Vavuniya to go. But no formal announcements have been made in this regard” the source said.

While stating that speedy efforts were afoot to resettle the IDPs under the “directive of President Rajapaksa” and “guidance of Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa”, Minister Badhiyudeen, when contacted by this newspaper, said “conditions have improved in the IDP camps”.

In the meantime, Sri Lankan embassy in the USA, in a statement issued last week said: “the government announced Tuesday that another 15,000 displaced families will soon be returned to their homes in the Jaffna area”.

The media communiqué‚ also claimed that “new figures released by the government of Sri Lanka show that the number of displaced people living in government-run welfare centers has dropped by nearly 50,000 as people continue to return to their homes”.

However, Minister Badhiyudeen said he could not confirm this statement.

Meanwhile, AFP quoted Sri Lanka’s army commander on Thursday as saying that additional numbers of security personnel are to be deployed in the demining efforts in order to expedite the resettlement process.

“The army is boosting operations to demine former rebel-held areas of northern Sri Lanka so that hundreds of thousands of Tamil war refugees can be released from internment camps and return home to the region” said the report quoting army commander Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya.

According to the army commander ‘some 300 soldiers are currently engaged in clearing mines in Mannar district, alongside four non-governmental groups, and another 400 soldiers will be deployed to join them soon’, the report said.

‘An area of about 3,100 square miles (8,000 square kilometers), including Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and parts of Jaffna districts, must be demined before it will be safe enough for the Tamils to return’ said Lt. Gen. Jagath Jayasuriya.

“Without demining, I don’t think we can take a chance” Jayasuriya said.

It is also learnt that EPDP leader Social Services and Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday to discuss the IDP issue.

The minister requested the president to act swiftly to address the problems of the IDPs, it is learnt.

Food supply

The World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nation continues to provide essential food items including rice, sugar, dhal and oil to the IDPs, humanitarian agencies said. “However, supplementary items continue to be scarce” an NGO employee said.
“The rain has forced many families who were doing individual cooking to resort to community cooking” he observed.

“It has also become difficult to conserve firewood” he said.

“The issue of damaged latrines and the health problems that ensued are still there” he added.

Updates from the situation report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on August 21

WASH
WASH agencies are prioritising the completion of all drainage arrangements across Menik Farm as a precondition to moving tents out of the most flood-prone blocks or zones (as explained above).

Camp authorities estimate that approximately 450 toilets in Zone 1, 80 toilets in Zone 3 and 200 toilets in Zone 4 were affected. (Data from the other zones is unavailable at this time). Much of the sewage, which overflowed from the latrines, has drained away at this point but some stagnant pools of contaminated water remain and require drainage. Agencies are in the process of repairing the damaged lids of septic tanks. Furthermore, bunds are being constructed around latrines in some areas to prevent flood water from seeping into the latrines.

Shelter
During the rains, nearly 20,000 people in Zones 2 and 4, were relocated to the Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS) in these zones. Shelter Cluster representatives were on hand to provide quick assistance by reroofing some TLSs and reinforcing the walls in other TLSs with plastic sheeting. The floors of the TLSs were also raised above the flood waters by adding layers of gravel.

Camp dwellers, who were compelled to seek shelter in the TLSs, have now returned to their tents. The floor and walls of many of the affected tents are still drenched. However, the tents are expected to dry out and are, essentially, not uninhabitable.

Food
The inundation in Zone 4 created an emergency requiring speedy intervention by the Food Cluster. The Zone’s food requirements until this point had been met by individual cooking. However, the IDPs stocks of dry rations were drenched. There were neither dry firewood supplies nor dry spaces, uncontaminated by sewage, to engage in cooking. Approximately 3,000 loaves of bread, 5,000 packets of biscuits and quantities of tea and sugar were delivered during the night of 17 August. In collaboration with the Shelter Cluster, around 17 communal kitchens were also renovated during the weekend. Food supply to the less-affected zones was ensured with fewer challenges. The roofs of nearly 100 communal kitchens were reinforced with tarpaulins in Zones 2, 3 and 4 as well. As of 19 August, the Cluster is providing one week’s supply of food for communal cooking.

(LAKBIMAnEWS - 23.08.2009)