Ranjitha Gunasekaran Last Updated : 09 May 2009 11:52:23 AM IST
One August morning in 2007, Stella was finishing her breakfast when she heard loud announcements from outside her nondescript house. The Sri Lankan Army was coming, due to pass through her village of Arippu in Mannar district any moment. Alarmed, Stella’s family and neighbours took to the streets to find out what exactly was happening. “The army was telling us to leave the village. All the same, some priests told us not to worry, and that they would handle it. Then we heard that a bunch of people returning to the neighbouring village crossed the Army and were shot. We were terrified and started moving,” she recalls.
Well past lunchtime, the villagers gathered by the nearby river, taking turns to cross it with the only boat they had. “By the time we all reached our destination, Nanata, it was 9 in the night. We hadn’t eaten all day and we were settled into the open ground attached to a school,” she says.
People from Arippu and its neighbouring villages were settled in tents on the cleared land. Thousands of people had to share six bathrooms and live on government-provided rations for sustenance. They collected
water from a nearby well. Soon, the vocation changed for most of them. “Many of the villagers were farmers, but we were forced to work as coolies after being settled in the camps. The teachers, though, set up school…at least the children could continue their education,” Stella points out.
Now, after nearly two years of living like prisoners, the villagers of Arippu are being allowed to go home. “But to what? Those who have managed to visit the village say there is nothing left,” Stella shrugs.
Arippu’s villagers are still lucky. The government is at least allowing them to go back home — though aid workers suspect this is simply to accommodate the newer refugees emerging from Vanni. On April 19 and 20, the Sri Lankan government launched what it termed the largest “hostage rescue mission ever”. Indeed, people who have spent months ducking shells in the so-called No Fire Zone admit that the army was constantly inviting people to cross over.
“But the LTTE wouldn’t let us leave,” says Manjula, a refugee who left on the International Committee of the Red Cross Ship in the last week of April. “Finally, one night the army crossed over the bund and surprised the people by rounding us up. The LTTE sentries — kids, really — dropped their guns and fled. The army boxed in the people and that is how they were able
to cross over the next day.” Ultimately, though when the people did manage to come, aid workers say the government was caught unprepared.
Sources in Vavuniya district report seeing busloads of people circling through the town or parked on the roadsides, as officials registered the refugees one at a time. Dhanya, a resident of the town, recalls having seen seven buses circling the town two weeks ago. “The buses were packed with people. I saw them in the morning when I set out and when I returned in the evening they were still out there. Two pregnant women delivered while in the bus and one child died,” she says.
Dhanya notes that even those in the camps are suffering, as they have little or no shade. “They are not allowed outside unless they lie and claim to need to visit the hospital and no one is allowed to visit them,” she adds. A frustrated aid worker speaks of crowds of relatives standing by the barbed wire surrounding the camps trying to see or speak to their relatives. “This is of course a privilege only for the older residents of the six camps in Vavuniya. In the case of the more recent arrivals no one knows how to find them,” she says.
Another aid worker who was visiting the town at the same time saw 25 busloads of people waiting on the roadsides as people were being registered. “They were not prepared to take in so many people,” he says. “They started asking that each family in the district donate five food packets for the refugees. But imagine the logistics of collecting this food. One organisation was called up and asked to provide 9,000 food packets out of the blue. The day we were passing through the area near Chettikulam, it was 4 pm, the people were all stuck in the bus and the lunch had still not arrived.
‘‘After months of starvation in the NFZ, the least they could hope for is at least food once they came over to the government side…. We have never seen people from this region extending their hands and asking for something, but as we passed the buses they were all practically begging for food.”
The situation appears to have been as bad in the Vavuniya and Mannar government hospitals. According to well-informed sources and aid workers, both hospitals are overcrowded and understaffed.
Says a visitor: “The Vavuniya hospital has 800 beds, but had much more patients. So it was accommodating them on the floor. The patients were begging from visitors — many of the newer ones did not even have a change of clothes, let alone money. There are not enough doctors, the operation theatre is full and only amputations and laparotomy are being done. People were seen eating nutrition supplements though, I hope they are getting other food.”
The scene in the Mannar Hospital seemed worse, going by an aid worker’s description. “It is as big as the Vavuniya hospital and terribly overcrowded,” he says. “People were on the floors of the hospital and even around it; temporary sheds had been put up with 10 to 20 beds under each to accommodate the patients. At least one third of the patients have lost a limb and the place is full of children. There aren’t enough doctors and they say even medicines are running low. In fact, several patients who have had amputations done say their dressings had not been changed since they reached the hospital. Worse, there aren’t enough toilets.”
What has frustrated aid workers, though, is they haven’t been allowed to help or even enter most of the camps that need their assistance the most and pitch in with more help in the hospitals either. Not surprisingly, Poovarasamkulam hospital where the refugees with chicken pox were taken has been flooded with aid and aid workers, reducing the stress on government medical staff.
“The worst thing,” an aidworker says, “is that so many of the people want to speak about their terrible experiences. There is an acute need for counselling, but that is the last service that is available to them now.” Instead, they are treated as prisoners — with neither rights nor freedom.
Concentration camps
Most of the camps are schools that have been commandeered. Refugees stay in tents set up in clearings or within common halls. Maria, an aid worker in Jaffna who worked in the camps during January-April, says that 10 to 20 families would share a hall. “This would mean ten families would be using one toilet.” Those in older camps have a little more freedom, but the newer refugees live under tight security. “They aren't allowed out, no one can visit them too — except the occasional aid worker." And, students continue classes under the trees.
From one hell to another
There are three ways of getting out of the NFZ alive. The first is to be injured and leave by the ICRC ship. Those rescued are taken to the Pulmoddai
hospital, then the Pathaviya hospital before shifting to the Vavuniya or Mannar hospitals. The second is to cross over to the army which takes the people by bus up to Omand, sorts them and then shifts them to the respective camps. The third is to pay local fishermen upto Rs 2.5 lakh to borrow a boat and make a bid for freedom in India or Australia.
The games people play
Manjula was among the 546 injured people on the shore of the NFZ waiting for the ICRC ship to rescue them. Many were starved and dehydrated — the government had stopped food supplies from the World Food Programme entering the zone for a month. That day, Manjula saw the ICRC ship
arrive at 7 am, but that wasn’t the end of the agony. “The ship was surrounded by 40 navy boats — they were trying to come along with the ship and attack the coast. The ICRC refused to move until they abandoned the attempt. This went on till 2.30 pm when the ship was finally allowed passage by the navy. “Two people died while waiting. One died as soon as we got on board,” she recalls.
(The names have been changed).
— ranjithagunasekaran@epmltd.com
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