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Sri Lanka

UN appeals for funds to relieve Sri Lanka civilian plight

COLOMBO, 23 April 2009: The UN today issued an urgent appeal for funds to meet the critical needs of an exodus of thousands of people who are fleeing fighting.

Speaking from Colombo after returning from camps in the town of Vavuniya where around 80,000 exhausted civilians who escaped the combat zone are being held, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Sri Lanka said that teams are scrambling to feed, clothe, shelter, and provide water to "crowds of weary and hungry people."

"I saw infants with dysentery, malnourished children and women, untended wounds, and people dressed in the ragged clothing they've been wearing for months," said Neil Buhne. "We need funds for all the basics like food, medicine, water, sanitation, nutrition, shelter, and clothing. And we want to try to get kids as soon as possible back into school in order to give them some semblance of normality."

The UN had appealed in February for $155 million to meet the anticipated increase in people escaping from the fighting in the north of the country, but has received less than one third of that amount. Since Monday, more than 90,000 people have escaped the combat zone where government and Tamil Tiger forces are fighting, in a sudden exodus that has stretched humanitarian and government resources. Aid agencies have rushed to fly emergency supplies by air into the region.

"Many of these people were forced from their homes by fighting more than a year ago, and it is something of a miracle that they have survived such a terrible ordeal," said Buhne. "We need to ensure that no more lives are lost by meeting their immediate needs, and beyond that to help them get back on their feet, so that they can eventually return to their homes."

The UN says that over-crowding in the camps is now a grave concern, and has urged the government to make available more land and public buildings for accommodation and to quickly identify and release people from the existing sites who present no security threat. Buhne said that while some elderly have been released, "there are many more people such as the elderly, disabled, unaccompanied children and pregnant women who could be rapidly identified and released in order to reduce the camp population." The UN has also urged the government to release UN national staff so that they can return to work.

While more than 170,000 civilians are now believed to have escaped the combat zone since January, the UN says that it estimates that tens of thousands of people remain trapped by fighting, who have been without humanitarian deliveries of food since 1st April.