IOM/OCHA Sri Lanka: Situation Report 22 - 26 Apr 2005

Situation
A Sri Lankan Parliamentary Select Committee is expected to be established by May to investigate the activities of local and international NGOs.

The Royal Netherlands government has sponsored the publication of Sinhala and Tamil language versions of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Copies will be distributed island-wide through the United Nations Association (UNA) of Sri Lanka's Study Circle Programme.

Overview of Activities

Since the tsunami struck theSri Lanka Red Cross and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at the request of the Ministry of Health, have distributed over 66,000 treated, mosquito nets in Galle, Matara, Hambantota and Ampara districts. Over 4,000 Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRCS) volunteers have been working in coastal tsunami-struck areas. SLRCS and the Federation's American Relief Emergency Response Unit (ERU) have distributed basic household items to over 300,000 people in the south and south east of the country since the tsunami struck. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has delivered more than 35,000 family kits and thousands of clothes, blankets and lamps in the north and east. SLRCS, the Federation and other RC/RC Societies have committed to build 15,000 houses in Colombo, Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Kalutara and Gampaha districts. The RC/RC Movement is providing over 250,000 liters of clean drinking water daily in Ampara district alone.

The OCHA field office in Batticaloa district is establishing a database of all non-food-related items that have been distributed over the past four months in tsunami-affected areas of the district. The database will be maintained for non-food items distributed in the future as well. This information will be made available as soon as possible to those organizations planning their distribution over the coming months, particularly for semi-permanent shelters in both relocation and return sites.

In response to complaints about an excess of flies at sanitation facilities over the past few weeks, the Central Environment Authority (CEA) is supplying the Mammunai North Divisional Secretariat in Batticaloa district with insecticide and sprayers to be made available to all agencies involved with water and sanitation issues in camps and welfare centres.

The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) has recently opened an office in Batticaloa. It is one of ten such CHA district offices. Others are in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Ampara, Mannar, Puttalam, Vauvnya, Galle, Matara and Badulla districts. CHA Batticaloa has invited shelter agencies, particularly local partners, to a workshop on transitional shelters organized jointly by CHA and RedR, a British NGO.

Main challenges and responses

Some 5,500 tsunami survivors are cleaning debris-strewn coastal areas for Rs. 300 (US$ 3.00) per day in a cash-for-work project funded by the Japanese government and administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). At least 13 areas in the districts of Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Hambantota and Galle have such cash-for-work programmes and more tsunami survivors are expected to participate in the cash-for-work debris clean-up in coming weeks.

In Batticaloa district although the clearing of the Batticaloa lagoon was supposed to start some two weeks ago through a USAID-sponsored project, the contractor from Colombo, who was supposed to provide the heavy machinery, pulled out at the last minute, deciding to move the equipment to a project in Galle instead. So far, the Kachcheri (the District Secretariat) and USAID have been unsuccessful in finding another contractor.

Two workshops that specifically target the needs and concerns of women and of groups working with women are being held in Batticaloa district this week - one on "Land Rights and Government Shelter Policies," and the other on "Construction: Planning and Building." In addition, the Women's Disaster Management Committee (WDMC) in the district is in the process of finalizing a second memorandum for the attention of district authorities that focuses on issues of women's land rights and shelter policies. The WDMC has also stressed the need to address hygiene and emerging health issues.