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Sri Lanka facing dual crisis: Holmes

COLOMBO: U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes has said the island nation faces huge challenges in meeting an unfolding humanitarian crisis.

At the end of his two-day tour, during which he went to camps for the internally displaced and interacted with senior authorities including President Rajapaksa, he told the media that Sri Lanka was trying to cope with “what amounts to two quite distinct crises.” “There are still tens of thousands of people trapped on a small patch of territory in the north, with the LTTE refusing to let them leave, and with fighting continuing,” said Mr. Holmes. “The second crisis is the swollen camps that are filling up with 2,00,000 people who fled the fighting, many in very poor condition, with more likely on the way soon.”

In a meeting earlier on Tuesday with President Rajapaksa, Mr. Holmes reiterated concerns over the level of civilian casualties and the urgent need to assist the civilians still trapped in the conflict zone.

Mr. Holmes added he welcomed the government’s announcement about scaling down combat operations and no further use of heavy weapons. However, he expressed concern about initial reports of continued shelling. With overcrowding a problem in the existing transit centres and camps for the displaced, Mr. Holmes urged that civilians who had been screened be given the chance to leave the camps and to rely on friends and family elsewhere.

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