Sri Lanka
Current Situation
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2011 Global Peace Index ranking of 153 countries: 126 |
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More than 220,000 people internally displaced after the conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers |
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141,063 refugees have left Sri Lanka |
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21 per cent of the population is undernourished |
The political landscape of Sri Lanka is characterised by three main features: the effects of the protracted armed conflict between the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers; ongoing power struggles between political parties, also involving hardliner groups; and tensions and distrust between different ethnic and religious groups due to the war’s distortion of the social fabric.
The costs of the war, which ended in May 2009, remain high, having mostly affected innocent civilians through the severe humanitarian crisis and grave human rights violations. Sri Lanka now faces a huge challenge in resettlement, rehabilitation, large scale infrastructure reconstruction and reconciliation between and within ethnic communities.
The 2004 tsunami and the devastating floods of December 2010 to February 2011 have heightened the challenges, with two million people suffering large scale displacement and damage to their houses, livelihoods and crops.
Act for Peace in Sri Lanka
Act for Peace supports the work of our partner, the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka (NCCSL), in disaster relief and rehabilitation, peace-building and reconciliation and upholding community and asylum seekers’ rights.
Act for Peace also supports the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR), which is assisting over 72,600 Sri Lankan refugees in 112 camps in Tamil Nadu, India. Their health program has created a pool of trained people in the camps — health workers and self-help groups — who have been providing successful health and nutrition measures. It is intended that these skills will be transferable to Sri Lanka when they repatriate. Efforts have been made to address identified gaps in services. For example, a diabetes screening program, a community rehabilitation program to better assist people with disabilities and a close screening and nutrition program for underweight children have been prioritised.
In June 2011, AusAID and Act for Peace enabled two OfERR representatives, Samuel Chandrahasan, OfERR’s founder, and Florina Benoit, to present at the 2011 Refugee Conference held in Sydney to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ Refugee Convention.
Mr Chandrahasan also went to Canberra to thank AusAID for its support, through Act for Peace, for OfERR’s health program, to advocate for continued Australian support for Sri Lankan refugees and to help Sri Lanka achieve a political, social and physical environment that promotes the full rights of all ethnic communities. He warmly thanked Act for Peace’s supporters for their partnership with OfERR since the mid 1980s.
Click here to read about how Act for Peace's project partners are helping people displaced by the devastating floods that hit Sri Lanka in late 2010 and early 2011, and here to learn about how partners are helping war and disaster victims in Sri Lanka to rebuild their lives.
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Can pay for nutritious meals for a week for 10 families displaced by a disaster. |
