Tamil Justice

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.

‘Sri Lankan government has an obligation to release civilians and provide adequate assistance’

Hans van de Weerd, General Director of MSF Holland, has recently returned from Sri Lanka. Here we ask him about the situation in the northern district of Vavuniya, where there are over 260,000 displaced people as a result of the now ended war between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“More than 260,000 displaced people are living in Vavuniya spread out over many different camps where they still don’t have freedom of movement. They are not allowed to leave the camps and are not allowed to possess phones.”

“Overall, there is a concerning shortage of medical staff inside the camps and MSF staff still hear stories of people who say it has taken them days to see a doctor.”

“Furthermore, in most of the camps, there are no adequate health services functioning at night, so it is down to the soldiers at the gates to judge whether a patient is ill enough to need to go to a hospital outside the camps.”

“MSF is working for the people in the camps, where freedom of movement is severely restricted, according to the government because of the concern about the presence of former fighters among the civilians. There are provisions under international law for such restrictions in states of emergency, which the Sri Lankan parliament has declared, but they are meant to be of limited duration…To date, there has been no clear, systematic release of anyone from the camps, with the exception of children under 10 and adults over 60 who have relatives outside the camps.”

“MSF is of the opinion that the government has an obligation to release civilians and ensure that adequate assistance is provided.”

“The process to issue visas for international staff is lengthy and very bureaucratic and this has hampered our work. Also the teams having to enter the camps on a daily basis for the feeding activities are often hindered by unclear procedures, which sometimes delays the work by hours or days.”

“MSF is not allowed to enter camps where we do not work and we have not been able to carry out an independent assessment of the needs of the displaced people in the camps.”

“MSF has the capacity to scale up activities and provide medical and mental health care for the people inside the camps. So far, the authorities have not accepted this proposal for assistance.”
Read full article here.

The war in Sri Lanka has ended but the suffering continues

Any health system would have difficulties responding to the needs of over 260,000 people who recently came out of a war zone. And so, facilities in the Sri Lankan IDP camps are overstretched. People sometimes need to wait days before they can see a doctor for treatment and at night non-medical people decide who gets referred to a hospital and who does not. The suffering continues.

For the past three months, Ati* has been living in a camp in Menik farm with her husband and three children. Two weeks ago, her five year old son had a fever and was barely responding. She carried him to the clinic in the camp at 5am and queued to see a doctor until 6pm. Like many others that day, she did not get to see a doctor and returned to her tent with her sick child and no treatment. She went back the next day and again failed to see a doctor after waiting for another 13 hours. It wasn’t until the third day that she finally managed to see a doctor who gave her some antibiotics.
Read full article here.

SRI LANKA: Aid Organisations Struggle to Operate in Post-war Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan government wants the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to scale down its operations in the country, but is sparing other international nongovernmental organisations amid questions over the post-war role for humanitarian workers.

Sarasi Wijeratne, ICRC spokesperson in Colombo, this week confirmed that they were shutting down four offices in the eastern region. These offices had 148 local staff and up to 10 expatriates, out of its total strength of 649.
Read full article here.

Sri Lanka: War-Wounded and Displaced Patients Flood MSF Hospitals
An update from MSF – Click here.

AUDIO:
Sri Lanka: A ‘quite indescribable’ scene after war ends
Lauren Cooney, MSF emergency coordinator tells of what she and her team are seeing in Sri Lanka.

Vavuniya district, Sri Lanka: Treating the wounded and medical emergencies remains a priority
“The current restrictions on access to the camps is limiting and slowing are ability to respond to the medical needs of the internally displaced persons,” said Severine Ramon, MSF coordinator in the MSF field hospital.

MSF treating hundreds of wounded arriving from Sri Lankan war zone
According to international humanitarian law, when a government does not have the ability to provide basic needs to its citizens, it is obliged to allow international aid agencies to provide this care. The report by Médecins Sans Frontières shows that the Sri Lankan government is breaching this law.

There are over 1200 patients and the bed capacity is just over 400. “It’s chaotic” says Karen Stewart “the beds have been pushed together so it’s like one massive bed. Instead of having one person per bed you have two, it’s just like one huge bed across the ward. Then there’s a whole other layer on the ground, we have people under every bed, so that’s double capacity. You also have a lot of people who are outside in the walkways lying on mats.”

People arriving from the war zone are put into temporary government run camps in Vavuniya which are fast reaching maximum capacity. Families are cramped together, in some cases an entire family has to live in the space of a sofa. There is no freedom of movement in between the camps and only a minority have been able to find out any information about their loved ones who might be in other camps. “This” says Karen “is one of the biggest causes of mental health distress. They arrive, wounded, lost and skinny and then they are put in a camp where they can’t leave and they can’t call their family. They have no communication, they have nothing. There can be a husband and wife in two separate camps and they would never know.”