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Fleeing from fire they could now drown in floods

By Vanessa Sridharan and Sachini Perera

One month after fleeing Mutur in the face of fierce fighting between armed forces and the LTTE, some refugees in Kantale now face a food shortage and the threat of being flooded out of their camps.

With the onset of rains these camp sites could turn into a muddy hell.
Pix courtesy of Muslim Aid

An aid worker in the area has warned that with the onset of the monsoon the tents in which the refugees huddle would sink in the mud since the camps are set up in harvested paddy fields which have no provision for drainage.

Naming some of the camps put up on the paddy fields, President of the Rural Economic Community Development Organization for Muslim Aid in Kantale, J.M. Azad said, refugees staying in Al-Muneera Thakkiya, Ikram, Najah, Pottangadu and ICDF would soon be facing the threat of floods. He also said due to lack of space aid organisations had no choice but to setup these camps in these now dried up paddy fields.

However, insisting there was a back up plan if the rains came, Kantale Divisional secretary Sirimevan Darmasena said, the displaced people will be accommodated in four schools. When asked why these displaced people were not put up in these schools in the first place he said the government did not want to encourage the residents to stay on in Kantale by giving them permanent shelter. He said the security situation was improving in Mutur and they were trying to persuade the displaced people to go back to their homes without fear. He said about three to four bus loads of people were going back to Mutur on a daily basis.

In spite of assurances from the government, Muslim Aid is already making plans to relocate about 3000 people who would be affected by the rains.

“Their safety comes first, so we have started building a permanent centre at the Ar-Rauff public grounds which will accommodate more than 100 families,” Mr.Azad said.

Warning about the imminent shortage of food Mr. Azad said refugees and many aid workers were losing faith in the government mechanism.

Commenting on the crisis, assistant manager of Najah camp, Buhari Nilwar said , “There is a lack of food in the camp and we are unable to feed the 848 people because the rations we received from the government were only sufficient for two days.”

It was the same story at ICDF camp where its manager J.Sujar said, “There has been no food available for the past two days. Three days ago, the government gave each family 400g rice, 60g dhal and 20g of sugar. But now they have used up their quota.”However, Mr. Darmasena, assured there was no shortage of food. “There were several complaints but we responded to them. The World Food Programme in Trincomalee sent three lorries of food rations and they are ready to supply more at any time.”

Mahabub Ul Alam of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Trincomalee confirmed that rations had been sent to refugee camps including those in Kantale. “We are able to supply food rations for another two weeks from our stores in Trinco and we are drawing up a plan to expand the programme,” he said.

But complaints kept pouring in from other camps too. Manager of Zahira camp T.M. Faslin said, “We don’t have food. Two days ago Muslim Aid gave cooked food.Unfortunately we have now run out of rations to feed the 403 families in this camp.”

He also said he had informed the District Secretaries office of their plight and he had been assured of rations.

“But we have still not received anything. When I contacted the World Food Programme office they told me that the rations had been handed over to the District Secretaries office. But it’s a matter of going round and round in circles,” he lamented.

Apart from the food shortage the Zahira camp is also facing a problem of water stagnation. The camp in situated in the compound of a preschool which is in the middle of two paddy fields. Although some of the refugees are housed in the school building most are in tents outside.

The Maruthamunai camp in Kantale is situated close to the railway and is on a lower level. This area too faces the threat of floods if it rains.

Mr. Azad said that although 134 families had so far returned to Mutur and Thoppur out of the 4848 families in the refugee camps in Kantale, most were still too traumatised to go back home after what they had undergone.

Other refugees

There are 19 Tamil refugees staying in Kantale. Twelve of them have sought refuge in a church while seven are staying at the ICDF camp. Most of the Tamil refugees from Mutur fled to Batticaloa.

More than 26,000 refugees from Trincomalee are living in welfare centres in Batticaloa. Apart from them 8040 have been displaced within the district,” Batticaloa’s GA C.C. Punyamoorthi said. The camps in Vavunathivu and Kiran are located in uncleared areas. There is a shortage of food in these camps too. Two lorries of food which were heading towards Vavunathivu and Kiran had to turn back since the road had been barricaded by the Army due to an operation in the area, The Sunday Times learnt.

The 3000 Sinhala families who fled Seruwila and were residing at the Agra Bodhi temple and the railway station in Kantale have now gone back home.

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