COLOMBO: It has been nearly two months since Selvarani, a Tamil national from the war beleaguered northern Jaffna peninsula arrived in Colombo, boarding a ferry service facilitated by the Sri Lanka Navy, seeking the safety of the capital where she has relatives. Although she has escaped the bombs, she now has other worries.
“My aged parents and my brother are still in Jaffna. I came to Colombo at their insistence as they were worried about my safety. But now I wish they had also come with me. In addition to the war they have to now worry about food as well. The shops are totally empty. Whatever that is available is sold between five to ten times the original price. Fuel has mostly totally run dry up but in few places it is sold at around 700 rupees ($7) a litre”, says Selvarani describing the plight of a people cut off from the rest of the country, since the only highway linking the north with the south was closed in August after full scale fighting broke out.
“The Tamils in Colombo are now sending their relatives food by parcel post but how much can we send,” asks Selvarani, standing at a post office in Colombo with a package of food items to be sent home.
Meanwhile postal authorities say that at least 33,000 bags had been received in Jaffna, but that nearly half of them had been badly damaged.
“The postal bags provided are not suitable to carry extra weight and when the parcels arrive in Jaffna they are damaged,” a source at the Jaffna post office said.
“It’s a desperate situation. The people of Jaffna are literarily starving,” says Saroja Sivachandran, a member of a special committee appointed by the Mahinda Rajapakse administration to look into human rights issues of the Tamils in the north. Meanwhile the government has sought neighbouring India’s help to rush urgent supplies of food, medicine and other essential consumer items to Jaffna. A spokesperson for the Indian High Commission said New Delhi was ready to provide all essential needs for the people of Jaffna. But he said the two governments were deliberating how these items can be transported from Indian ports to the Jaffna peninsula.
Jaffna’s Government Agent K. Ganesh meanwhile says that food items should be immediately sent to the area to prevent the humanitarian crisis from deepening. The government agent says 24,481 tons of food items are needed for the Jaffna district for the month of November.
The Tamil Tiger rebels have refused to give a security guarantee for food to be sent by sea insisting instead that the A9 road route from Colombo to Jaffna be opened.
The north eastern seas have always known to be a theatre of heavy battles between the LTTE sea tigers and the Navy. “What we asked the Sri Lanka government was that the A9 road be opened so that the food and the other items needed by the people of Jaffna can be sent regularly and without hassle. Now, the situation here is that the people of Jaffna are imprisoned in the peninsula,” LTTE spokesperson Daya Master said.
