People displaced by armed conflict, northern Sri Lanka, 26 April 2009. © Private
By Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International’s researcher on Sri Lanka.
Six months ago the Government of Sri Lanka announced that war in Sri Lanka was finally over. Victory seemed sweet to ordinary Sri Lankans in the south. The deliberate killing of civilians by Tamil Tiger suicide bombers polarized communities and bred real fear that conflict could leak into ordinary life and affect anyone at any time.
Triumphalism about the elimination of the Tamil Tiger leadership led to dancing in the streets of Colombo. What was forgotten in the moment of victory was the suffering of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians displaced by the conflict and now unlawfully detained in camps in the north east.
Continue reading ‘Six months of suffering in the Sri Lanka camps’
We arrived in Kenema on Tuesday evening after an eight-hour drive from Kambia. Kenema is one of the main diamond trading posts in Sierra Leone and was one of the areas most affected during the war. Many people in the surrounding areas still live in former camps for Liberian refugees who fled during the war.
I met a woman called Louise Harvest Hilton, who works for Brighter Future in Kenema. She told me about a woman called Bindu who died during child birth in Unama refugee camp.
She was a student at Eastern polytechnic in Kenema, but drove to the camp because the health facilities there are cheaper. She died at the hospital and, according to Louise, the doctor said that the delay in seeking treatment killed her.
Continue reading ‘Delays that kill in Sierra Leone’
Andrew Philip, Amnesty International researcher, blogging from the field
Today we spent the day at Nakivale camp, 300km away inside Uganda from the Congolese border, speaking to more refugees, including a 14-year-old boy who was on his own in the camp. Crying his eyes out, he told us how he has found his father, mother and sister shot dead inside a hospital in Eastern DRC. A man described to us the killing at point-blank range of his neighbour and friend. There are a lot of very traumatised people at the camp and at Ishasha.
Continue reading ‘Fear and trauma at Nakivale refugee camp’
Andrew Philip, Amnesty International researcher, blogging from the field.
Back in Mbarara, after a strange sort of day.
We went back to Ishasha this morning. Yesterday many more people had arrived and the camp and the town were jam-packed with people.
Humanitarian agencies there are now overwhelmed, doing their best, trying to organize the evacuation of refugees to other places and refugee camps further inside Uganda where they can receive them.
Continue reading ‘CNDP take the DRC part of Ishasha today’
Andrew Philip, Amnesty International researcher, blogging from the field.
Today we were at Ishasha, on the bridge over the river that divides the DRC and Uganda, and we saw hundreds of people crossing, probably over 5000. Today’s flux was unusual, according to an UNHCR official who told us they had never seen so many arrivals in one day since the end of October.
Fighting between the Mayi Mayi and the CNDP armed groups happened today in Nyamilima and Kinyandoni. People flee to get out of the DRC as soon as they can. Some are lucky and get accommodated in large tents, but today, thousands of people will sleep outside, many of them with no food and very little water remaining after the twenty kilometres they had to walk to make it to the border.
Continue reading ‘Today we were at Ishasha…’
