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War escalates as NGOs forbidden entry & civilian toll rises

October 9, 2008

I am writing to call your attention to the devastating humanitarian crisis occurring in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Army is advancing into Tamil areas in the north, causing over 200,000 refugees to flee from the military onslaught.

On September 23, the BBC released a first-hand account from a foreign aid worker who witnessed the unraveling humanitarian crisis before foreign aid workers were banned from the region in early September. The aid worker wrote, "The sensation of the approaching doom was all too real with this kind of warfare... The [refugees] were hungry, tired, afraid and traumatized... Mothers were dealing with the raw emotion of just not being able to protect, feed and educate their families."

Since September, foreign aid workers are no longer allowed in the region because the Sri Lankan Army claims they could not ensure the security of workers in the region. Refugees and local human rights groups protested the expulsion of aid workers, believing it removed the last vestige of protection against Army excesses. In the capital, Colombo, over 100,000 Tamils were ordered to re-register with the police, prompting activists to decry the continuing harassment and discrimination against Tamils. On October 6, Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera, a former Sri Lankan military commander in the Jaffna peninsula was killed along with twenty six other people in a suicide bomb blast. On October 2, a UN convoy entered the war zone with food supplies for the over 200,000 displaced refugees in Sri Lanka, but international personnel were not allowed to enter the region.

As the war escalates and the repercussions are felt throughout Sri Lanka, the desperate pleas of refugees should not be left unheeded. I urge you to utilize your position as High Commissioner for Human Rights to call upon the Sri Lankan government to allow the return of international aid organizations to the besieged northern region. Previous Commissioner Louise Arbour called for an OHCHR office in Sri Lanka to stem the rising atrocities, but as the situation deteriorates, much more attention and action is desperately needed. The conflict in Sri Lanka and the escalating death toll deserves your urgent attention in the search for a solution for those suffering in Sri Lanka.