TNA to brief international community on northeast devastation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2005, 15:49 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will soon brief the international community about the massive needs of the north-east that suffered the worst in December 26 Tsunami disaster, TNA sources said Sunday.

They said the decision to brief the international community was taken at a meeting between a group of ten TNA lawmakers and Liberation Tigers political head S. P. Thamilchelvan in Kilinochchi on Friday.

It was decided at the meeting to open a coordinating center in Colombo. The coordinating center will act as the focal point to supply information about the damages in the northeast, the ongoing rehabilitation efforts and the extent of the help needed from the international community.

Thamilselvan told the TNA parliamentarians preliminary estimates showed that at least 2 billion rupees (20 million US dollars) is needed to restore normalcy to the people of the Mullaitivu district affected by the Tsunami. “When we compute the needs of the entire northeast it is going to be a massive amount”, had told the TNA MPs.

Menawhile, LTTE's naval commander Col. Soosai who is directing the operations in Mullaitivu told the Colombo Tamil paper Sunday Virakesari that without international assistance it would be impossible to get the district back to its normal form. district He also appealed to the Tamil expatriate community for help. ''I appeal to the Tamil expatriates to adopt villages and rebuild them at least to what these were before the Tsunami,'' he told the paper.

He added that LTTE's naval wing was working day and night to clear the debris in the Mullaitivu town. ''We need heavy machinery. We have only a few. They are totally inadequate,'' he said.