Sri Lanka's displaced grows to 265,000
Dan Sadowsky, May 18, 2009
Country: Sri Lanka
Tamil civilians stand next to their huts in a refugee camp located on the outskirts of the town of Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer, courtesy www.alertnet.org.
The war in Sri Lanka may appear to be over, but its humanitarian crisis is still unfolding.
In recent months, an estimated 265,000 Tamil civilians have fled the final battleground between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to the UN.
Mercy Corps has 90 staff members on the island helping families "build back better" from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In the two hardest-hit coastal areas, Mercy Corps is helping job-rich industries recover and fighting a food crisis that threatens the most vulnerable families.
In the country's north, our team is taking steps to help families uprooted to the Vavuniya district, home to the highest concentration of displacement camps. These sites are "already buckling under the pressure of the existing IDP population," according to the UN. Stocks of food and other critical items are running low.
Our plan is to erect temporary shelters, provide drinking water, build latrines and promote better hygiene practices — and ultimately help families return to their communities and rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
We're doing just that in Sri Lanka's conflict-scarred Eastern Province — helping people recover by providing small-scale rice farmers the tools and financing to improve their yields, and by working with multi-ethnic associations to build trust and lay a foundation for peaceful progress.
Share this page on Twitter ›
Share this page on Facebook ›
Share this page by Email ›Sri Lanka Emergency:
How You Can Help
Donate now to provide emergency assistance to families displaced by conflict between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tiger rebels
Related Content
On mercycorps.org
A Can-Do Spirit
Handwashing posters, new water taps, and a revamped latrine are just some of the recent changes at Nalagama Sinhala Junior School in coastal Sri Lanka.
One Table: Farming Rice, Intensively
Kanthi Weerasinghe is one of 160 farmers in the village of Yahangala East experimenting with a method of growing rice called SRI, which is short for System of Rice Intensification.
Exodus of IDPs overwhelms northern Sri Lanka
Mercy Corps is marshaling a humanitarian response to the growing crisis in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 90,000 people have fled fighting between Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army in the past week.
Print
Twitter
Delicious
Facebook
Digg
Reddit
Yahoo! Buzz
Newsvine
Mercy Corps on the Web