ICRC in post-conflict North

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

North is the area most affected by the conflict. Thousands of people were killed and displaced due to the conflict. Being in the post conflict situation, still the negative outcomes of conflict are clearly visible in the North. While the Government is giving solid solutions to the remaining issues in an appropriate manner, many other international and local organizations are involved in the process.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sri Lanka is remarkable in its humanitarian service in North during the conflict situation and in the current post conflict situation. ICRC is providing an outstanding service to the people who undergo post conflict issues in North in order to upgrade their living condition through economic, social, educational and cultural means.

The ICRC continues to run its family visits programme in conjunction with the SLRCS, helping families by different means. They help people keep in touch with their relatives by giving them travel allowances to visit their relatives. In Vavunia district, the ICRC and SLRCS are setting up a pilot project that will provide households affected by the conflict with micro credits, vocational training or grants to help them restart their livelihoods.

On the Jaffna peninsula, the ICRC provides the Jaffna Jaipur Centre for Disability Rehabilitation with technical and material support, enabling the centre to fit patients, including mine victims with artificial limbs. The centre is currently looking after some 2,000 disabled people. The centre was founded in 1987 as the Jaffna branch of the ‘Friend in Need Society’ and has been functioning separately since 2001.

The ICRC provides the centre with supplies, including raw materials such as polypropylene and components for building artificial limbs. Recently the centre has produced 96 artificial limbs for amputees, including victims of land mines and other explosives. Apart from that, it has provided crutches and walking sticks and wheelchairs. It even provides a transport allowance for patients to travel to the centre.

ICRC staff have been visiting places of detention throughout the country since 1989, on the basis of a memorandum of understanding with the Sri Lankan government. During the confidential discussions with the authorities that take place during the visits, ICRC staff seek to ensure that the treatment of detainees and their conditions of detention meet international standards and comply with domestic law.

ICRC has provided essential services to the people in North and East, including house building projects, providing economic aid, tractors, agricultural toolkits which upgrade their economic abilities.

It has trained 75 Sri Lankan Red Cross Society (SLRCS) volunteers to clean flood-contaminated wells, facilitating the cleaning of over 125 wells, benefiting more than 500 families. It helps out children who are schooling and youth as well. ICRC is involved in a project called Disaster Management Programme. Natural hazards often occur in Sri Lanka bringing hundreds of negative outcomes. Through this programme they try to save lives, strengthen capacities of people to cope with and recover from disasters and crises leading to peaceful coexistence.