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Dr.T.Varatharajah, Regional Director of Health Services in Mullitivu district has sought the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ISRC) in safeguarding the health services of the district.

Mullaitivu district is currently under siege from advancing Sri Lanka armed forces and an estimated number of 230,000 people are in the district, including several thousand Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

In his letter to the ICRC office in Puthukkudiyiruppu, Dr. Varatharajah pointed out arrangements similar to that existed in Jaffna during the 90’s are urgently needed in Mulaitivu. Early last decade, Jaffna Teaching Hospital and its immediate surroundings were declared as security zone amidst similar catastrophic war situation prevailing in the Jaffna peninsula.

Full text of the Regional Director of Health to ICRC as follows:

Head of Office,
ICRC,
Puthukkudiyiruppu

Current health Situation in Wanni

I, being the Regional Director of Health Services of the Mullaitivu region, on behalf of the Heads of the Health Institutions of Mullaitivu District, would like to bring to your kind attention the current tragic and disastrous situation of the Wanni.

We who live in the Wanni, Who love and long for the establishment of Justice, Peace and Harmony are seriously threatened by the current war situation in Wanni, We are highly perturbed and anxious about the current development.

The geographical territory occupied by the people keep on shrinking and it is becoming almost impossible for the people even to move towards safer areas away from the battle fields.

A Population of about 225,000 as at 10 January 2009 is forced to live within a shrunken area of Puthukkudiyiruppu AGA division , Amidst a severe shortage in medicine, medical staff, food supply, clothes and shelter materials, we continue to serve to the people with dedication.

To serve this suffering people the medical services are very essential . For this purpose medical institutions such as Divisional Hospital Puthukkudiyiruppu, GH Mullaitivu (Vallipunam School), Divisional Hospital Mallavi (GHCC Moonkilaru), CD & MH Naddankandal ( GHCC Udayarkattu )functioning at specified places in the AGA division Puthukkudiyirupu with 9 MBBS doctors, very minimum health staff and without adequate resources have been giving curative and preventive medical services.

Due to escalation of the ongoing war, we are afraid to say whether we can continue this services at the same places without endangering the precious lives of our health staff. On top of all terrors, few artillery shells fell into the premises of divisional hospital Puthukkudiyiruppu at around 10 am on last Tuesday (12/01/2009), injuring two patients . This totally inhumane attack targeting a major hospital where some displaced health institutions were temporarily annexed and many people depend on it for their health care has left the staff and the people in total panic.

Therefore we humbly request you to take urgent steps to.

1. Make arrangement to declare above mentioned health institutional premises as security zones. We would like to remind you of the post instance in which the ICRC has declared the Teaching Hospital, Jaffna and its immediate surroundings as security zone in early 90s when similar catastrophic war situation had been prevailing in the Jaffna peninsula.

2. Ensure regular ambulance services to DGH Vavuniya.
3. Make sure uninterrupted supply of drugs from Vavuniya.

4. Ensure the life of the health staff.

Dr.T.Varatharajah
RDHS
Mullaitivu

Children in Vanni are severely traumatized amid continuing aerial bombing and artillery attacks by Sri Lanka armed forces. Civil society sources say too little is being done to protect children in Vanni, Sri Lanka’s Northern region that is facing an onslaught by advancing Sri Lanka forces.

In several instances parents and/or elder members of same family have been killed in a single incident, leaving children without anyone to care for them. Each day more children are being hurt, their small bodies wounded, their young lives shattered under continuous bombardment by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

With hospitals and doctors already battling to cope with the injured, women and their newborns are not getting the medical attention they need. Inadequate medical supplies and severe shortages of food, water, diapers and formula worsen
the already dire situation.

Similing for the camera

A recent report said, a striking feature of the IDP population that has just moved from Tharmapuram to Theravil are the large number of children among them. Babies in mothers’ arms, dawdling toddlers, young children eating raw mangoes, boys playing marbles or digging bunkers, girls playing hopscotch or caring for younger siblings, they are the ones filling the place.

There is no school for them now because the school buildings are overflowing with IDPs; so it is either playing or helping mum all day. Young children seem to develop maturity under misery. Many do help out the adults in this most miserable and uncertain environment.

The cold January weather in Vanni and the frequent rain must be hard on the children. The human contact, especially that of the extended family, also gives them sustenance to withstand the pressures of IDP lives.

“In Sri Lanka, strict compliance with international humanitarian law is all the more critical with the intensification of fighting in the Vanni region and reports of intermittent artillery fire into civilian populated areas in recent weeks,” John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, stated in his report to the Security Council in New York on 14 January.

Several aid agencies have urged unhampered humanitarian access into Vanni, the protection of schools and medical facilities, and expressed concern over the long term psychological damage to children.

Ten year old Tharmarasa Nirojan can dig a bunker in no time

Too hungry to wait till it cooks

Mum left the tarpaulin behind and now this is all we got

Taking shade next to a bus

According to Health authorities in Kilinochchi district only few medicines, fluids and blood bank requirements have come through the Government of Sri Lanka in recent times. They said this material is very minimal and does not cover the requirements of the hospitals in Vanni, as they are trying to cope with rising number of civilian casualties everyday now.

[a Child injured in Visuvamadu on Jan 17 at an area clinic-pic: Puthinam.com]

The hospitals and clinic are running short of everything – medicines, medical equipment, sterilising equipment and blood reagents. They pointed out that the blood bank is not adequate and do not have the material to test the blood for blood types.

Dr.T.Sathyamoorthy, Regional Director of Health Services in Kilinochchi District has written to Health Officials in Colombo seeking assistance to improve health care services to civilians being hit in Sri Lanka Army artillery fire in Northern Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka should immediately give humanitarian aid groups broad access to Vanni to alleviate the suffering of the civilian population and make other urgent steps to help alleviate the suffering of Vanni civilians, several civil society sources in and outside of Sri Lanka have said in recent times.

Years of a highly restrictive blockade and the recent intense military operations have left civilians of Vanni in desperate need of food, water and sanitation. Medical care is woefully inadequate to deal with the thousands wounded civilians from the indiscriminate artillery fire by the Sri Lanka Army. Civilians have nowhere to flee Sri Lanka Army’s aerial and ground attacks engulfing Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu districts, as areas near hospitals and other clearly marked safe areas too have become targeted. [monsoonjournal.com]

A demonstration condemning the Israeli assault on Gaza was held today after Friday Jumma prayers in Oaddamaavadi, in Batticaloa district. Special prayers for the well being of the people of Palestine were also held in mosques in Eastern Sri Lanka, Colombo based premier Tamil daily Virakesari reported.

The demonstrators gathered in front of their mosques and marched to the grounds near Oaddamaavadi bridge.

The protesters called on Israel to halt its military operation in the Gaza Strip where hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed in several weeks of Israeli military operation.

The protesters directed their anger mainly at Israel and United States. They torched flags of these countries and burnt effigies of Israel and US leaders.

T.Gurukularajah, Zonal Director of Education, Kilinochchi has written to Sri Lanka government authorities for the establishment of a humanitarian safety corridor for civilians in Viswamadu to Puthukudiyiruppu. The director has appealed to safeguard the lives of children and civilians from heavy shelling.

His letter in full as follows:

My No: NP/45/20/1/1/1,
Zonal Education Office,
Kilinochchi,
2009.01.14.

Secretary,
Ministry of Education CA & Sports,
Northern Province,
Varodhayanagar,
Trincomalee.

Please to safeguard the lives of children and civilians from heavy shelling.

I am sending this urgent plea for your utmost concern and consideration to use your good office to make our lives safer in the war trodden areas of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.

To day on the day of Thai Pongal we are gathered at Punnaineeravi School to give our last respect to our dear children Sugiva and her sister Sinthuja both along with their precious mother Gunaranjini Suthakar who is a teacher and brother were brutally injured and these two brilliant girls died on the spot the mother and son are at critical stage. The mother a teacher Kilinochchi/Bharathy Vidyalayam along with her kids was inside the house at Visvamadu when the shelling took place at 10 am on 13th January 2009.

From 1st January we have lost Vasuki Rassiah a teacher at Nagendrapuram GTMS due to aerial attack and a grade six child at Puliyapokkanai on 2nd January. These incidents and the recent displacement owing to severe fighting have created panic among all of us. People are moving constantly in search safe places to dwell. As the geographical area has shrunk civilians are at risk and many of them keep moving to avoid heavy shelling.

Severe shelling is the most venomous weapon at this stage of this war for which the general public is most worried. The sound of the cruising shell make us shiver making us crouch and dive to the ground. The trauma we face every time a shell passes cannot be expressed. You can imagine how hard this will be on the youth and children. They are helpless and the parents are unable to safe guard them from this monstrous shelling.

I, appeal to you Sir, to convey this sad message to the Hon.Governor and to use your good office to inform the relevant authorities not to shell civilian targets and to declare Viswamadu to Puthukudiyiruppu a safe area for civilians to live.

T.Gurukularajah,
Zonal Director of Education,
Kilinochchi.

[Students and teachers were killed in Jan 13th Sri Lanka Airforce aerial attacks]

Reports by humanitarian workers inside and outside of the war ravaged Northern part of Sri Lanka are reporting terrible misery of civilians having to move multiple times, within the last few days or weeks alone.

One such report on the plight of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Tharmapuram says, the large numbers of civilians are forced to move from here which was one of the largest concentrations of IDPs in the district. The area has come under intense Sri Lanka Army artillery in the first two weeks of January according to civil society sources.

The full report:

Tharmapuram exodus

A large percentage of the IDP population that had sought refuge in other parts of Kilinochchi had ended up in Tharmapuram by October 2008. The Kilinochchi District Secretariat moved too and functioned in temporary sheds in Tharmapuram. By end of 2008, even the Kilinochchi District hospital was forced out of its new building in Kilinochchi town by SLA shelling attacks and moved to Tharmapuram branch hospital.

Paranthan-Mullaithivu Road Through Tharmapuram

Effectively IDPs from Mannar District, Vavuniya North and other parts of Kilinochchi District were packed into Tharmapuram. The Paranthan-Mullaithivu Road that is in a very poor state had become a very busy and hazardous road with buses, tractors, motorbikes, cyclists, food convoys and school children crowding the streets. Being the rainy season even the cows and dogs wanted to occupy the dry parts of the road. The stretch of this road running through Tharmapuram had thus become a location for many fatal road accidents.

It was this Thramapuram that was hit by many SLA fired shells since 8 January 2009. Since then there have been, three instances of shell explosions in the middle of IDP settlements in Tharmapuram causing serious casualties. There have been at least six deaths and thirty two injuries in Tharmapuram over these five days. Among those killed are two children under the age of 15 and one old person over the age 60. Among those injured are six children under the age of 15 and eleven old persons over the age of 60. Among the total of 38 victims, in these shelling attacks over the five days on Tharmapuram IDP population, 19 are females.

The exodus from Tharmapuram

By 11 January the exodus from Tharmapuram had began. When shells began to explode near the displaced Kilinochchi hospital in Tharmapuram it too was forced out. The already crowded road had now become virtually packed with moving tractors loaded with household possessions. The poor condition of the road and heavily loaded tractor s, every few hundred meter vehicles brokedown with their heavy load adding to the mayhem. With injuries caused by shell explosions on the increase all around Vanni, even ambulances were stuck for hours in this road mayhem.

Three days old IDP shelters in Theravil

Frightened by the increased level of death and injuries caused by shelling, the movement of masses of people however, continued and people were again living under trees this time from Theravil onwards away from Tharmapuram.

Selvarasa Selvy

Selvarasa Selvy had been moving since the start of 2008, beginning from Thadchanamadu in Mannar. She had moved to Periyamadu in Mannar, then successively to Kanesapuram, Vannerikulam, Murippu, and Kalmadu in Kilinochchi District and is presently under trees in Theravil in the Mullaithivu District. She knows Milton aged 15, who were killed in the claymore on a school bus in January 2008 in Thadchanamadu. Anita aged 16 also injured in the same attack is her niece. Their relative Thambaih Tharmalingam aged 45 was killed a few days ago by aerial bombing and his family was mourning his death under trees in Theravil. His body and his family had since been moved to a building to hold his funeral. Selvy and the boys have too much to worry and are not able to go to the funeral.

Balasubramanium Kamaleswari

Balasubramanium Kamaleswari, originally from Jaffna, moved with family to Kilinochchi in 1996. They ended up living in Mallavi and they have accumulated a large herd of cows, goats and poultry. After the recent military attacks they moved to Skanthapuram, then to Kilinochchi and then to Tharmapuram and have ended up in Theravil. Though the family tried to move their livestock with them all of it have either died or have been lost.

Thilakeswaran Thiresa

Thilakeswaran Thiresa is from Parathipuram in Kilinochchi. They moved to Akkarayan in 1996. After the recent military attacks, they moved to Utrupulam then to Kalmadu and then to Nethaliyaru where they stayed at the GTMS school. A shell exploded inside the school grounds on 11 January and her aunt, Elumalai Manonmani, was injured in her thigh and is still in the hospital. Her family has also ended up under trees in Theravil.