[ IPS ]

Incessant rains and flooding in the Vanni, the Tamil rebel stronghold in northern Sri Lanka, are adding to the woes of at least 200,000 people stranded in intensified fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan army since mid-September. On Tuesday, the pro-LTTE website, TamilNet.com, reported that floods were “flowing over most of the roads and civilians who had sought refuge in open lands and in temporary huts in low-lying areas were forced to seek shelter in schools, temples, churches and public buildings in Vanni.”

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[BBC]

A UN official in a rebel-held area of northern Sri Lanka has said that conditions for displaced people there are “as basic as in Somalia”. John Campbell, from the World Food Programme (WFP), told the BBC Sinhala service that conditions were “as basic as can be” and “much less than ideal”. Mr Campbell was speaking from the rebel-held village of Dharmapuram. The area is close to recent heavy fighting between Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan army. Independent journalists are prevented by the government from travelling to war-hit areas of the country - the WFP is one of the few foreign agencies allowed to deliver aid to the area.

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[ UN News Centre ]

United Nations relief officials are continuing to assist authorities in the conflict-wracked north of Sri Lanka respond to flooding that has displaced more than 70,000 people and affected 300,000 others. A UN inter-agency assessment of civilian needs in Northern province’s Jaffna district — the district hardest hit by the floods — has been carried out, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

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