[ICRC]

“Water, sewage and electrical power systems, along with medical facilities, are usually the first things to be disrupted when a war breaks out,” said Robert Mardini, who heads the ICRC’s water and habitat unit. “They can be damaged or shut down completely by shelling and explosions, or overwhelmed by influxes of displaced people. Such incidents are often followed by massive shortages and by rapidly spreading disease that can result in loss of life.” Mr Mardini cited Iraq, Gaza, Sri Lanka and Somalia as examples of places where the delivery of water supplies and sanitation services has been severely hampered by recent armed conflicts.

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[Telegraph]

SO little independent, verifiable information is coming out of northern Sri Lanka at the moment that I thought I should share this BBC report based on an interview with a World Food Programme employee, John Campbell, broadcast on the network’s Sinhala service. Speaking from a waterlogged village in a rebel-controlled area, he made this observation about conditions being endured by many of the estimated 230,00 people displaced by the fighting. “It is basic as it can be,” he said, stepping unwittingly into the minefield of Sri Lankan politics, “I haven’t seen anything so basic since when I was in Somalia.”

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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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