It is now nearly four months since Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared the country “liberated” from the Tamil Tiger rebels after a 26-year war. He said then that he wanted to settle most of the displaced Tamil civilians within 180 days but, today, with 60 days to go, nearly 280,000 are still being – in the words of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – “effectively detained under conditions of internment.”
Humanitarian agencies' access to these camps remains restricted, the high commissioner said, “and the mandates of relief agencies are increasingly coming under threat.” UN staff have even been attacked. One person who was able to visit the camps was Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said, “I have travelled round the world and visited similar places, but these are by far the most appalling scenes I have seen.”
In mid-August, these camps were flooded by downpours that, according to The New York Times, “sent rivers of muck cascading between tightly packed rows of flimsy shelters, overflowed latrines and sent hundreds of families scurrying for higher ground.” When the full monsoon comes in a few weeks, no one knows how many will die from waterborne diseases, including cholera and typhoid.
Moreover, there is no public list of those being held in the camps, and many families do not know whether their loved ones are alive or dead.
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