MSF – Thousands Injured during the Final Stage of Sri Lanka’s Decades-long War
As fighting raged earlier this year between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in northeastern Sri Lanka, tens of thousands of civilians were trapped for months in a war zone reduced to a narrow strip of jungle and beach, with no aid and limited medical care. A few months before the final phase of the country’s decades-long civil war, humanitarian aid agencies, including MSF, had to leave the areas most affected by the fighting, at the request of the government. Only the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) could continue some crucial medical assistance, evacuating some of the wounded to Ministry of Health hospitals. An MSF surgical team worked since February 2009 in one of these hospitals, in nearby Vavuniya.
Guardian, UK – Blocking of aid worsened 2009 humanitarian crises, group says
Trapped civilians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sudan cut off from aid deliberately, says Médecins sans Frontières
The withholding of government aid to trapped civilians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sudan contributed to the worst humanitarian emergencies of 2009, a medical group said today.
Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) also pointed to a fall in funding for the treatment of diseases such as sleeping sickness and HIV/Aids as part of its annual list of worst humanitarian crises for the past year.
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