Refugees of Sri Lanka Conflict Are Back in Camp After Tsunami
By Ian Gill JAFFNA, SRI LANKA (9 March 2005) - Victoriya Albonz and her family are back in camp after being driven from their village on Sri Lanka's northeast coast first by civil conflict, then by the tsunami of 26 December 2004.
Manatkadu was one of several villages caught in the crossfire between government naval forces and Tamil Tiger separatists, forcing Victoriya and her family to move in 1995 to a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) at Puthukudeyiruppu.
They remained there until a ceasefire agreement in 2002 allowed them to return to their village. Victoriya and her family of five were rebuilding their lives when the tsunami razed their home and swept them into camp.
In spite of such bitter memories, Manatkadu is still home to Victoriya and she wants to go back.
It is easy to understand why. Such coastal villages enjoy a pristine environment beside palm-fringed beaches and a normally calm ocean.
During a recent ADB reconnaissance mission, Mookiah Thiruchelvam's eyes mist as he surveys the remains of another such village, Uduthurai.
As implementation officer for the ADB-supported North East Community Restoration and Development (NECORD) project to help conflict-affected communities, he had helped villagers rebuild lives broken by a civil war spanning nearly two decades.
"I remember asking a group of women - many were widows as their husbands had been killed in the war - what they needed and they said an oori (gravel) road would be handy for trucks to come and collect fish," he says. "So we built a road, a school and a fish market and provided some fishing boats. Now it's all gone."
The tsunami claimed over half of Uduthurai's 530 villagers, too. Standing by a tent erected beside a church, Nagamuthu Nageswaran, 38, is one of the few survivors, who were mostly men.
"All I remember is being pushed out of my home by the water and then running and running," he says.
Asked about his family, he says, "I didn't see them. I couldn't see anyone." His voice breaks and he turns away. His wife and three daughters did not survive.
Nearby, a Tamil Tigers cemetery is a reminder that violent death has been a constant presence in this region for a long time.
Since 2001, the NECORD project has helped over half a million people in the northeast. As well as restoring livelihoods to fishermen and farmers, the project has built nearly 500 homes, 150 schools and over a dozen hospitals and health clinics.
Now ADB plans an emergency assistance package that combines planned assistance to conflict-affected populations with new funds to reconstruct tsunami-affected communities. By doing so, ADB wants to ensure equitable treatment of all displaced people, whatever the cause, and minimize the opportunity for new conflicts. The grant for tsunami reconstruction will also include areas in the south that were badly damaged by the natural disaster.
Financing will be part of a substantive grant and loan package being discussed with the government, and closely coordinated with the interventions o other development partners.
By speeding up implementation through existing project management units, Victoriya and thousands like her may be able to resume normal living before too long.
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