Elevated Voices

Dear Friends, Over the past year, I have been visiting Sri Lanka to work with amazing human rights and health organizations to create collaborations to help forward their agendas and, ultimately, affect change. I work for the International Women's Health Coalition and we began working with Sunila Abeysekera and her human rights documentation center, INFORM, to help ensure that women's voices were heard during the tsunami reconstruction process. Our work in Sri Lanka was marked by the cease-fire agreement which has since reversed as Sri Lanka tumults back into conflict. Moved by colleagues and friends, I create this website to help share the news and stories of Sri Lanka. Sometimes the world gets tired of hearing the same old story, but this is one that cannot go unheard or forgotten. Postings on this site will include communiques I receive from treasured colleagues, including Sunila and friends at INFORM, Bhavani Fonseka at the Centre for
Policy Alternatives, friends at the Women and Media Collective and others. I welcome your feedback. In solidarity, Supriya Pillai

Thursday, December 14, 2006

4,000 people displaced in eastern Sri Lanka clashes

From People's Daily Online (China)
14 December 2006

[W]eek long clashes between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the government troops have displaced over 4, 000 people in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, relief officials said Thursday.

The Army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels have been exchanging heavy artillery and mortar fire and the internally displaced have mostly come from the Sinhala majority community settlements in the eastern post district of Trincomalee.

The chief government administrative office at Kantalai in the district said nearly 2,000 families from the settlements of Somapura, Sirimangalapura, Alioluwa and Mahaweligama had found refuge at Kantalai.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that they have launched action to help the civilians flee the battle zones.

The Nordic truce monitoring group, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has been critical of both sides.

Relief workers say they have been hit with logistics problems in catering to the needs of the displaced people.

Source: Xinhua

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