This elderly woman with a fractured leg attempts to take the hazardous sea route to the cleared areas for treatment

Vakarai Hospital in the uncleared area which has turned into a refugee camp and inset Dr. Thurairathnam Varatharajan himself a refugee

The second blow: Misery of Eastern refugees

By Anthony David and Chris Kamalendran

As an old year ends and a new one begins, memories of the scars left behind by the devastating tsunami two years ago came alive in most hearts. The human tragedy that wreaked havoc is still alive in the minds of those who survived and the millions who learnt of the heart rending tales. All that is over, but so many things happened then.

But Sri Lanka, once the blessed isle that boasted of calm and peace, seems to have become the playground for human misery. More sordid tales of suffering and untold hardships are unfolding by the hour as Security Forces and Tiger guerrillas fight bitter battles in the East.

Vakarai and adjoining regions where farming and fishing were key occupations of the villagers had remained serene over the years. It is these shores that the rays of the morning sun kissed first and spread rapidly to other parts of the country. But today, the inhabitants are forced to starve as artillery and mortars of the protagonists are raining on their heads.

The hospital at Vakarai could qualify to become the busiest but the least staffed hospital in any combat zone in the world. There is one doctor and one midwife. Since December 8 more than 2,000 patients have been treated there.

The hospital, with just 10 beds, has been graded as a mobile hospital and had been usually manned by Italian Red Cross doctors. But since the closure of the road and the recent fighting the hospital is manned by a local doctor who is also one of those who had fled the Ichchilanpattu area in the Trincomalee district.

“We are short of medical supplies and unable to transfer the patients to the cleared areas as the ICRC is yet to be granted permission to enter the area by road”, Dr. Thurairathnam Varatharajan, told The Sunday Times by telephone. The hospital is not only accommodating patients, but also housing some of the displaced who believe that the area is safe and may not be caught in the crossfire between the security forces and the Tamil guerrillas.

Four days ago a woman suffering from malnutrition had delivered a child weighing 800 grams and the doctor was battling to save the child’s life. That was among one of the cases during the past three weeks where the doctors battled to save the life of children and the elderly.

On Friday they were forced to transfer eight sick persons by a fishing boat to Valachchenai despite the risk of coming under attack as the ICRC was yet to arrive to evacuate the patients. The military is yet to grant permission to the ICRC and NGOs to enter the area on grounds that the security situation was not conducive for them to travel due to artillery fire by the LTTE.

“There is intermittent firing from LTTE-controlled areas. We cannot take a risk and send any person into the uncleared areas”, military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe told The Sunday Times.He said that the ICRC needed to get an assurance from the LTTE that there would be no firing from them and that only after such assurance was received the military was willing to grant permission.

“The ICRC also has the option of using the sea route”, he said. However, The Sunday Times learns that due to rough seas the journey by sea is risky. Last week 14 persons were drowned when they attempted to flee Vakarai by boat and since then hardly any one has been using this route to escape.

Not only the UN agencies and INGO’s have been turned away, several media teams too have been refused permission to enter the Vakarai area. As the displaced from the uncleared areas continue to stream into government-controlled areas of Batticaloa a fresh refugee crisis is developing with the number of displaced since April this year now exceeding more than 70,000 and more expected in the coming days.

The number of camps accommodating the displaced have now swelled up to 46 with many of them overcrowded with the displaced from Vakarai where the food and medicine situation has been worsening. The exodus has prompted the Government Agent’s office to appeal for urgent funds.

Attempts by the LTTE to force civilians to remain in uncleared areas have failed with more civilians opting to leave despite the long and risky journey through unknown jungle tracks. Civilians arriving in government controlled areas are being received by the army at Rideethenna, a village in the Punani area on the border of the Batticaloa district. Tamil music is broadcast to entertain the villagers arriving there in an apparent public relations exercise by the Army to encourage them to move into government controlled areas.
Most of them have hardly had any proper food for days or weeks.

The displaced fleeing to government controlled areas described the adverse food situation and shortage of medical attention in the Vakarai area which had prompted them to leave. “The Vakarai hospital premises is accommodating more than 5,000 displaced persons”, one of them said.

Civilians arriving in the cleared areas say that sufficient food stocks were not reaching the uncleared areas as the road from Batticaloa to Vakarai has been closed for the past two months due to the security situation and the food convoys no longer arrived there.

The last food convoy had reached the area on November 29 and has been the only convoy sent there during the past two months, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (See box story)

A large number of women and children have walked more than 40 kilometres to enter government controlled areas. They had been forced to pay Rs. 1,500 for the tracker who had guided them through the jungles to the entry point to government controlled areas.

Those arriving at the entry point at Rideethenna in Punani undergo a security screening before they are registered and allowed in.
At least 15 persons have been detained by the Army since last Sunday and the screening process is continuing.

The displaced have been arriving from April onwards from areas as far as Trincomalee soon after they believed that the security situation was turning worse, following the bomb explosion in the market place in the Trincomalee town that claimed over 19 lives.
During the past two weeks 21,000 civilians have arrived into the cleared areas, marking one of the biggest exodus in a short period and creating a huge burden on relief agencies and the government administration, including the Government Agent.
Batticaloa’s Government Agent S. Punnayamoorthy told The Sunday Times that they were trying to cope with the ever increasing number of displaced persons. (See box story)

The Batticaloa GA’s office has already been burdened with displaced persons as some 30,000 affected by the tsunami continue living in 5,863 temporary shelters awaiting resettlement. Together with the tsunami victims the number of displaced in Batticaloa have now passed the 100,000 mark.

One of the main problems the Government Agent anticipates is that he would have to organize alternative arrangements for the displaced who are being currently accommodated in 22 government schools. The rains are already causing problems to those already accommodated in the welfare centres.

An UNHCR spokesperson said that they were carrying out a survey and were preparing five relocation sites identified by the authorities for semi-permanent accommodation with a potential capacity of 12,000 persons for immediate occupation.
Six more proposed sites are also under assessment, the spokesperson said.