OCHA Situation Report
Sri Lanka: Tsunami
22 - 26 April 2005


Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Situation

A Sri Lankan Parliamentary Select Committee is expected to be 
established by May to investigate the activities of local and 
international NGOs.

The Royal Netherlands government has sponsored the publication of 
Sinhala and Tamil language versions of the United Nations Universal 
Declaration on Human Rights. Copies will be distributed island-wide 
through the United Nations Association (UNA) of Sri Lanka's Study Circle 
Programme.

Overview of Activities

Since the tsunami struck theSri Lanka Red Cross and the International 
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at the request 
of the Ministry of Health, have distributed over 66,000 treated, 
mosquito nets in Galle, Matara, Hambantota and Ampara districts. Over 
4,000 Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRCS) volunteers have been working in 
coastal tsunami-struck areas. SLRCS and the Federation's American Relief 
Emergency Response Unit (ERU) have distributed basic household items to 
over 300,000 people in the south and south east of the country since the 
tsunami struck. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has 
delivered more than 35,000 family kits and thousands of clothes, 
blankets and lamps in the north and east. SLRCS, the Federation and 
other RC/RC Societies have committed to build 15,000 houses in Colombo, 
Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna, 
Kilinochchi, Kalutara and Gampaha districts. The RC/RC Movement is 
providing over 250,000 liters of clean drinking water daily in Ampara 
district alone.

The OCHA field office in Batticaloa district is establishing a database 
of all non-food-related items that have been distributed over the past 
four months in tsunami-affected areas of the district. The database will 
be maintained for non-food items distributed in the future as well. This 
information will be made available as soon as possible to those 
organizations planning their distribution over the coming months, 
particularly for semi-permanent shelters in both relocation and return 
sites.

In response to complaints about an excess of flies at sanitation 
facilities over the past few weeks, the Central Environment Authority 
(CEA) is supplying the Mammunai North Divisional Secretariat in 
Batticaloa district with insecticide and sprayers to be made available 
to all agencies involved with water and sanitation issues in camps and 
welfare centres.

The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) has recently opened an 
office in Batticaloa. It is one of ten such CHA district offices. Others 
are in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Ampara, Mannar, Puttalam, Vauvnya, Galle, 
Matara and Badulla districts. CHA Batticaloa has invited shelter 
agencies, particularly local partners, to a workshop on transitional 
shelters organized jointly by CHA and RedR, a British NGO.

Main challenges and responses

Some 5,500 tsunami survivors are cleaning debris-strewn coastal areas 
for Rs. 300 (US$ 3.00) per day in a cash-for-work project funded by the 
Japanese government and administered by the United Nations Development 
Programme (UNDP). At least 13 areas in the districts of Jaffna, 
Mullaitivu, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara, Hambantota and Galle have 
such cash-for-work programmes and more tsunami survivors are expected to 
participate in the cash-for-work debris clean-up in coming weeks.

In Batticaloa district although the clearing of the Batticaloa lagoon 
was supposed to start some two weeks ago through a USAID-sponsored 
project, the contractor from Colombo, who was supposed to provide the 
heavy machinery, pulled out at the last minute, deciding to move the 
equipment to a project in Galle instead. So far, the Kachcheri (the 
District Secretariat) and USAID have been unsuccessful in finding 
another contractor.

Two workshops that specifically target the needs and concerns of women 
and of groups working with women are being held in Batticaloa district 
this week - one on "Land Rights and Government Shelter Policies," and 
the other on "Construction: Planning and Building." In addition, the 
Women's Disaster Management Committee (WDMC) in the district is in the 
process of finalizing a second memorandum for the attention of district 
authorities that focuses on issues of women's land rights and shelter 
policies. The WDMC has also stressed the need to address hygiene and 
emerging health issues.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
South Asia Tsunami                        www.cidi.org/incident/tsunami