Sri Lanka: Quenching the thirst of thousands

KANTHALE, Trincomalee: Until last week, the road going south from the Kanthale junction was mostly deserted. Most vehicles whizzed past the junction towards Trincomalee, some 50 kilometres East of Kanthale town. But now numerous vehicles are making their way on the otherwise desolate road that links Kanthale to Muthur. There is a traffic jam every five minutes. The 10-foot-wide road is unable to accommodate the rush of vehicles heading southwards to reach the thousands of people, who have fled the fighting between the government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and sought shelter in various schools and public buildings. Four-wheel drives, pick-ups, trucks, water bowsers and vans, are all rushing down the road with food, relief items, water and other essentials. Hundreds of families, who could not find space in public buildings, have settled down along the road. They spend their days and nights under thin plastic sheets provided by aid agencies. These families have now occupied every inch of empty space available. "We came here on Sunday, but by that time the space inside the school building was occupied so we had to pitch this tent and stay here," says 45-year-old Malina. "The conditions here are very bad. Until yesterday drinking water was scarce. Now we have two tanks close to our tent." Malina fled Muthur with her eight-member family on Saturday afternoon after shells hit the nearby school building where many families had taken shelter. "We walked many miles carrying whatever we could gather," she says. "When we reached Thoppur we managed to find a truck coming in this direction and that brought us here." 20-year-old Irfan is searching for his parents. He fled Muthur along with his family, but on the way all 11 members got separated. "A shell exploded close to where we were walking. All of us ran to take shelter. When I recovered from the shock, all my family members had left the place. I have found my younger brother Farhan since. He is in a camp at Mollupathana. My other family members are still missing. I don't know if they are still alive," Irfan says as tears swelled in his eyes. For both Irfan and Malina's families it has been a traumatic experience. They lost their homes in the tsunami and were housed in a transitional shelter. "This is the second time we have got displaced." says Malina. "My house was fully damaged in the tsunami. We moved to a temporary shelter and then to a transitional shelter. For one and a half years we lived in the transitional shelter and now we are under a thin plastic sheet." For the first two days, some 8,500 families living in the Perathuveli Muslim School and the open ground around it had to fetch water from the irrigation channel that flows in front of the school. They had to use the adjoining fields to relieve themselves, as the toilets in the school were not adequate for such a large number of people. Mohammad Ali, a relief coordinator with Sri Lanka Jamaite Islam, has been working here since the first batch of families arrived at the school. "Initially we accommodated them in the school but when the number increased by the hour we had to find space outside the school premises. These people were without water and toilets for days." Ali mobilized volunteers to help Oxfam in setting up the toilets. "I am grateful to Oxfam for supplying water. They have set up 10 tanks and the Oxfam bowser is filling water in tanks provided by other agencies. Inside the school premises, there is a 10,000-litre tank set up by Oxfam," he says. Every day, Oxfam is supplying over 100,000 litres of water to Paruthaveli Muslim School, Ayesha Muslim School and the Agramahabodhi Buddhist temple. "We have decided to set up 16 water tanks in the vicinity of the camps. Our water bowser works from morning till late night, filling up the tanks along the roadside and in the camps,'' says Ramanathan Sivasuthan, Oxfam's programme coordinator in Trincomalee. To overcome the shortage of toilets Oxfam is building 80 toilets in Kanthale and another 10 in Kinniya, where a major influx of displaced families is expected. Some 25 toilets have already been set up and the rest are under construction. At the nearby office of Sarvodaya, an Oxfam partner agency, young men and women are busy making wooden boxes. "These boxes will be used for setting up temporary toilets," says Sunil Wickramarrachchi, the head of Sarvodaya in Kanthale. "The number of families is increasing by the day. We are prepared to meet the needs of these people but the lack of space is hampering our efforts to provide sanitation facilities," Phillip Manuel, Oxfam's programme officer says.

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