"LTTE more actively prevented people leaving during pause" - John
Holmes
"Forced recruitment of civilians, including
children, to fight or work for the LTTE, continues"
"There seems to be less civilians getting out during
the [New Year] pause than before. So it is clear that LTTE did not allow
those who wished to leave even if they wished to leave the area during
this pause to do so, they seemed to be actively prevented from doing so,
perhaps more actively prevented from doing so during this pause, so that
is a matter for great regret," said Sir John Holmes, UN Under Secretary
General for Humanitarian Affairs at a briefing on the situation in Sri
Lanka at the UN, New York, April 15.
"We believe they should be allowing people,
encouraging people to leave the no fire zone. Civilians should not be
used as pawns or human shields in this way. So we call on the LTTE very
strongly to change their attitude to this and to allow those who wish to
leave, which we believe is the vast majority at least, and to do so as
soon as possible to get them out of harms way," he added.
Responding to a question by the media on what evidence
do UN has that these people actually would like to get out, the John
Holmes said: "The UN agencies, International committee of the Red Cross
and our staff and people, when they came out of the LTTE hold they made
it absolutely clear that people were being held against their will. They
had to flee and if they try to leave they are being fired upon. When
they try to flee, huge pressure is put on them against their leaving
like forced recruitment of the civilians including children against
their will, to fight or work for the LTTE. There may be some immediate
family members who may stay but overwhelming majority would want to get
out at least for safety reasons irrespective of political reasons."
Answering another question whether the UN is calling
for a ceasefire, he said: "Regarding a ceasefire, what we have done is
to call consistently for a peaceful and orderly end to hostilities and
to that end to call for a humanitarian pause which we hope could be
transformed into something lasting. It is pretty clear frankly however
that a ceasefire is not something that is available in the present
circumstances. We are trying to do something realistic in the present
circumstances."
Asked how many people have been killed and injured,
John Holmes said: "You cannot give verifiable figures. Dozens may be
killed per day. It goes up some days, it goes down other days. There
were reports 50 - 60 killed or injured and other days it is less but we
cannot verify.'
With regard to medical and halt conditions in the NFZ
he said there may be water borne diseases. However, there is no danger
epidemic at the moment. His full response was:
"There are some rudimentary medical facilities in the
zone. There are some doctors, some medical supplies have been delivered,
we need to get more urgently. Red Cross ship arrives every two or three
days taking supplies, the patients are brought to better facilities for
treatment in Trincomalee and Vavuniya. Poor water quality, poor
nutrition may give rise to disease etc. Because there is no supply of
antibiotics, sometimes amputations have to be carried out. There may be
water borne diseases. However, there is no danger epidemic at the
moment."
Here is the text of the Opening Statement by the UN Under
Secretary-General:
Let me try to give you an update on where we stand on
the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka, in particular, in the very
small pocket of land where the fighting is continuing in the so-called
no fire zone and the plight of the many civilians trapped there, I
believe about 100,000 people are still trapped there and I think the
first thing to say is that we warmly welcome the pause in offensive
military operation announced by the Government at the beginning of the
week. It was a valuable first step and we hoped that it would allow more
trapped civilians to leave the conflict area in safety, and it provided
a respite for the civilian population from the fighting and the deaths
and injuries that it causes, we also hoped that it would be possible to
get more aid into the area and also for humanitarian actors themselves
to be able to get into look at the situation accompanying with aid and
assess the needs of the population in this no fire zone.
I think the Secretary-General himself made it clear in
the statement that he made at that time, that he would have liked a
longer pause, a longer humanitarian pause, a proper humanitarian pause
and preferably one agreed by both sides for more days than two.
Nevertheless we welcome this 48 hour pause and we hope that this would
allow progress in the various areas we have outlined. Now it is clear
that 48-hour was not long enough to allow us to get in significant
amounts of more aid or indeed to allow visits by humanitarian workers to
the area and unfortunately it is also clear that not only did this not
allow more civilians to get out, there seems to be less civilians
getting out during the pause than before. So it is clear that LTTE did
not allow those who wished to leave even if they wished to leave the
area during this pause to do so, they seemed to be actively prevented
from doing so, perhaps more actively prevented from doing so during this
pause, so that is a matter for great regret.
We believe they should be allowing people, encouraging
people to leave the no fire zone. Civilians should not be used as pawns
or human shields in this way. So we call on the LTTE very strongly to
change their attitude to this and to allow those who wish to leave,
which we believe is the vast majority at least and to do so as soon as
possible to get them out of harms way. The fighting according to latest
reports has now resumed, including in the no fire zone which is
effectively the only area now occupied by the LTTE as was always. It was
always very difficult for us from the outside to say who started the
firing and exactly what is happening, who is firing where, but
unfortunately it seems that the casualty toll is once again rising and
that is a very worrying situation for that very large civilian
population who are trapped there. So we hope that there will be some
kind of extension or possibly a renewal of this humanitarian pause
again, a pause in military operation so that the civilians will have a
further respite and there is more chances and they will be able to get
out of harms way and get out of firing and the fighting and to safety.
In addition, obviously if there was a longer pause for
more days, it would have given us a better chance of getting more aid in
and better chance of getting humanitarian aid workers into the area. I
think during the pause, the International Red Cross was able to get a
ship in there as they have been doing regularly, even before the pause
but they were able to do it more easily and with a greater degree of
safety, otherwise than if the pause had not existed; it enabled them to
evacuate casualties and bringing some supplies at the same time. We hope
that there will be a further World Food Programme ship arriving in the
no fire zone to unload food later this week, I hope, setting off
tomorrow again and taking in large amounts of food which are desperately
needed because although supplies have increased in recent weeks as I
have said, food supplies have increased in recent weeks but there is
nothing likely sufficient for the population and we are also extremely
concerned about the availability of medical supplies and also the
availability of shelter and clean water and other essential supplies for
the people who are trapped there. Let me repeat that it is essential for
all concerned to do everything they can to save civilian lives in this
area, to protect the civilians in this area and I call on the Government
once again to live up to the promises they made on repeated occasions
not to use heavy weapons in this area and I am afraid they have been
doing that in some respects and that's what that is obviously one of the
factors that is causing these civilian casualties.
We also take the opportunity to call on the Government
again to move faster to address the concerns that we have raised about
camps themselves and camps to which those who escaped from the zone are
able to get to in terms of civilianization of the management of the
camps, freedom of movement for those who are in there, better monitoring
of people as they come out of the area, to make sure that the screening
is being done in a transparent way and the stories of abuses during the
screening process can be effectively dealt with because there would be
presence of UN agencies or the International Red Cross at that time and
of course it is an important part of this as well at the time the
assurances, that the people who are in the camps could be allowed to
return to their villages or places of origin as soon as possible, once
the fighting is over and after essential task of de-mining has been
done.
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Courtesy : PRIU |
