TRO: Food shortage in Safe Zone, critical

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 12:55 GMT]
While the need of food for the estimated 165,000 people, as determined by the District Secretariat, is roughly 2500 MT a month, ships brought only 60 MT for the whole of April, and the 1100 MT announced by the Sri Lanka Government to be loaded in Trincomalee in ships, never materialized, said Lawrence Christy, head of Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) field office in the Safety Zone, in a report released 2nd May, adding that World Food Program is limited by the Government of Sri Lanka to send a quantity of food barely sufficient to keep alive 50,000 people, a number GoSL is willing to admit as the numbers holed up in the Safe Zone.

"TRO is continuing the gruel provision activity at Mullivaikal too. 17 centres are functioning for fulfilling this essential task. From morning 10 to evening 4 they provide gruel to hungry people. People – young and old line up with jugs under hot sun and drink that rice gruel. The ingredients of the rice gruel are rice, water, salt and milk.

"Dead bodies are being taken by TRO volunteers for burial or cremation. Dead bodies have to be collected from shelters and bunkers. When dead bodies are brought to the hospitals or when the wounded people died in the hospital as the treatment failed they also have to be picked up. Almost all the dead bodies amounting about 6,500 were collected by TRO and buried or cremated," TRO said in the report on relief activities.

Chronology: