War TAMIL IDPs face many difficulties: SEDEC

War IDPs face many difficulties: SEDEC

By Yohan Perera

Caritas Sri Lanka SEDEC the social service arm of the Catholic Bishops Conference yesterday said the war displaced persons are facing many difficulties as a result of their numbers growing instantly.

Caritas Sri Lanka National Director Fr. Damian Fernando told a news conference held by Caritas to announce completion of its tsunami relief work yesterday that most of the problems arose when the numbers grew instantly after the final battles in the North.

He said there were only 32,000 families originally in the camps but the numbers grew after the final battles. “This made it difficult for the authorities to provide the necessary facilities to them,” he pointed out.

Fr. Fernando explained that there is a lot of mental distress among the IDPs as many of them are separated from their loved ones. “A programme should be launched to re-unite broken families,” he added.

He said the government authorities and the Northern Task Force Chairman Basil Rajapaksa and other authorities were informed about the issues and they assured that the issues will be resolved.

The Church pointed out that discussions are under way with the authorities to allow the civilians from the South to visit Madhu for the feast on August 15. Catholic National Commission for Justice Peace and Human Development Bishop of Galle Harold Anthony Perera who also participated in the conference said that the jungle area around the Madhu Church may be

mined and should be cleared up.

Other than the war displaced persons it was also revealed that there are still 11,000 tsunami displaced families who are homeless and 1000 families of them are from the Western Province.

Bishop Harold Anthony Perera said these families do not have the necessary documents to prove that they were really displaced by the Tsunami while some of them does not own a land of their own to build houses.

Reoffering to the tsunami relief work carried out by Caritas it was said that a sum of Rs 10.8 billion has been received by its partner organizations in over 162 countries around the globe.

It was revealed that over 10,718 permanent houses, 12, 616 temporary and transitional houses have been constructed by Caritas since 2004. In addition livelihood assistance in the fisheries and Agricultural sectors has also been given to the affected persons.

Caritas officials mentioned that the Buddhist clergy ably assisted the relief work which was carried out in the South. “We associated with the Buddhist clergy to safeguard religious coexistence,” Bishop Harold Anthony added.

DAILYMIRROR.LK