| Now that the Tigers have been crushed the real mewling can begin ... |
(CNN) -- The United Nations is demanding full access to refugee camps that are home to an estimated quarter of a million people fleeing war in Sri Lanka, the United Nations Children's Fund said Tuesday. "People are arriving into camps sick, malnourished and some with untended wounds of war," UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said in a written statement. "... Water and sanitation needs are critical."
Some 65,000 people have fled what had been the fighting zone in northeast Sri Lanka over the past few days, the United Nations said Monday, bringing to 265,000 the number of internally displaced people. The refugees were trying to escape what appear to be the final days of one of the world's longest-running civil wars.
International aid agencies have been trying to provide services to the hundreds of thousands forced out of their homes by the violence. UNICEF and others are supplying food and water, emergency health kits, cooking pots, water purification tablets, and student and teacher kits, the agency said.
But "it is reported that access to some camps for internally displaced persons within Sri Lanka has become restricted," UNICEF chief Veneman said, prompting her call for full access.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday vowed to erect an additional 10,000 shelters to accommodate people streaming from the combat zone. It reiterated its request for the Sri Lankan government to set aside land for the construction of emergency shelters, water and sanitation facilities and public buildings in Vavuniya, Jaffna, Mannar and Kilinochchi. And it called on the government to improve conditions at 42 sites already hosting displaced people and to ensure they be adequately cared for.
But the United Nations said its access to the sites in Vavuniya had been curtailed in recent days "and this affects our ability to monitor and distribute aid to the displaced. We hope this ends quickly." |