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Children under attack

August 14, 2008

I am writing to commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the bombing of Sencholai, a children's home in northern Sri Lanka, and the lives of the 61 innocent girls killed by this Sri Lanka Air Force attack.

On August 14, 2006, over 400 schoolgirls were attending a first-aid training seminar at Sencholai when the SLAF dropped 16 bombs on the children's home. The Sri Lankan government claimed that Sencholai was a rebel military installation, but this allegation was refuted by international organizations and the Nordic-led ceasefire monitoring mission. Following the attack, UNICEF decried the "unnecessary violence" and reported that "these children were innocent victims of violence."

Violence against children by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces has been increasing as the conflict has escalated over the past two years. The North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR), a local human rights monitoring group, reported that last week, the Sri Lankan Army "launched an indiscriminate artillery barrage" in a residential and medical area, killing an 18-month old baby. Also this past week, 5 schoolgirls were abducted by armed men in a van in Batticaloa. Witnesses stated that the van was seen stopped at a Sri Lankan police division area, fuelling concern that the government is sponsoring or supporting these abductions and extrajudicial killings.

Children are increasingly under threat as they are displaced due to the conflict. A report recently released by NESOHR stated that in July alone, there were over 130,000 internally displaced persons in the Kilinochchi area. Of these, over 28,000 were students and young children.

On August 1, the Asian Committee on Human Rights (ACHR), a New Delhi-based human rights watchdog, decried escalating attacks on children in a report ranking Sri Lanka as the Number 1 human rights violator in South Asia. ACHR stated that Sri Lanka has "very high levels of impunity which tend to suggest a worsening of the human rights picture over the long term." In ACHR's analysis, Sri Lanka "scored the highest negative points for the right to life, the rights of the child, attacks on human rights defenders, and violations of the rights of the minorities."

In light of these intensifying attacks, I urge Congress to pressure Sri Lanka to accept international human rights monitors to promote and protect the rights of innocent children.